WILL NEGATES DEFEAT
by halocreamdevil
Summary: Two wars and ten years have changed the Naruto everyone thought they knew. A new mission is beginning; one to save them all... No pairing, rating may change due to violence. Previously known as Lord Hokage's D.O.G. AU after Sasuke's fight with Raikage.
1. Chapter 1

Lord Hokage's Dog—Part 1

Looking out from the watchtower, Sakura sighed contentedly; the day had been quiet and sunny. Kohona was quiet -now that the wars were over, and she was grateful for the peace that had settled around the village.

For five years, wars had rocked the continent, brought by two countries from afar. Strikingly enough, the recreated Sound had allied with Kohona, bringing their enemies to their knees with the help of the Wind and Wave villages. Despite Kohona's victory, Sakura could not help but shudder at how bitter the war had been, and how the shinobi countries had barely overcome the sudden assault of the other lands.

The two nations from afar had covertly been recruiting ninja for their attempt at a takeover, and when they came, they came with more ninja than ever anticipated. Sand, though a close ally, could not lend their full support because of an uprising within the Wind Village, and Wave, though strong, was also small, and even with all their help, Kohona struggled. The Hokage, strangely enough, had foreseen this and had dove directly into the fray, saving Kohona from invasion and Suna from a complete _coup de grace_.

Naruto saved them all.

After Danzo had died at the hands of Sasuke during the war, Tsunade had been called on to select the next Hokage and had handed Naruto the title. All of Kohona's shinobi had expected it except for him, and Naruto, for a moment, did not accept the position—which shocked everyone. Sakura would never forget the moment when he took the previous Gondaime's offer though.

"_Alright, Granny, you got me." _

_Tsunade's eyebrow rose slightly, and she swiveled in her chair, looking suspicious. She crossed her arms, looking miffed. She drawled, "Oh, so now you want it. Why should I let you have it when I practically threw it into your lap before? Last time, I was put to shame in front of the council because you said no." Naruto smiled and shrugged, "Maybe because this time I know it's overdue, and you've finally realized that not everybody loves me like you…"_

_Tsunade balked, but Naruto kept talking, his face growing into a solemn smile, "Or maybe because I now know just how much I have to be willing to give up for this village?" _

_Contemplative, Tsunade swiveled in her chair and looked out the window. She gazed at the village, knowing what Naruto meant, but wanting to dangle his reward in front of him for a little while longer. "So, enlighten me: What does one have to be willing to give up?"_

_Calmly, Naruto replied, "To be a shinobi, you have to be willing to die for your country. To be the Hokage, you have to live for your country. So I think what I'm trying to say is, you have to be willing to give up your essence, what makes you tick, what makes you, well… you. Including those who you love the most, know the best—"Naruto choked on those words, and Tsunade knew just how hard they were to swallow. "Well, I think that you know better than anyone what I mean. This necklace is just an example of that."_

_Holding up the pendant that Tsunade gave him, Naruto drew closer, and the crystal caught the morning light, casting it on the opposing wall. Absentmindedly, the Hokage watched the sparkle as Naruto finished._

"_Just like this. You have to spread everything good that comes to you." _

_With a soft smile, Tsunade stood from behind the desk and embraced him, tears falling silently. With a soft whisper she said, "Jiraya would be so proud of you, brat."_

Sakura sighed with remembrance, until a hand clapped her on the back so hard that she pitched forward. Whirling around, she snapped at the blonde kunoichi behind her, "Ino Pig! What was that for?"

Ino put her hands on her hips and rocked back and forth on her heels, "You were thinking again, and everybody knows that's dangerous, Forehead Girl! Besides, aren't you supposed to be the Hokage's ever-alert assistant?"

Grinding her teeth, Sakura fired back, "Of course I am Ino-pig! You're the only one that seems to forget that!"

Ino smiled and her head tilted to the side, snaking an arm around her friend's shoulder[.] "Naw, I just gotta remind you of your duty to the Boss."

With a cry of mock anguish, Sakura relaxed and turned to her friend, shoulders sagging[.] "Why do you guys always call him that? He's still Naruto, you know."

In thought, Ino stood back from her friend, and leaned on the lookout wall, "I guess 'cause of Konohamaru; when Naruto ascended, I think it just stuck. Now even Lee calls him Boss."

Sakura groaned, "Lee too! Aw man!"

Ino pouted and was about to respond when said shinobi rounded the corner. "Well, speak of the green beast…" Sakura murmured.

He smiled brightly and gave her a thumbs-up, "Miss Sakura, the Boss wants you to go talk to Shikamaru. There's a bit of a slack at the North Gate, and he wants you to help him fill in the gaps."

Rolling her eyes, she raised her hands in exasperation as she marched away, "One would think that the man didn't have an unlimited amount of clones to do that sort of thing! Jeez!"

Lee laughed shook his head, "Miss Sakura, do you realize how strange it would be to have the reigning Hokage on gate watch?"

Pausing, Sakura nodded, "Yeah, but do you realize how strange it is to have the _assistant_ of the reigning Hokage on gate duty?"

*&*

Shikamaru leaned back on the borrowed chair that he stole from sentries at the South Gate, and put his feet up on the table that was set up to process visitor documents. He closed his eyes and let the sunlight filter in through his eyelids, but just as he relaxed he felt a shadow block the sun from his skin. "Maa, Sakura, you're late."

Sakura cringed but ignored the comment, casting a glance around the empty gate. It seemed that Shikamaru hadn't had much to do that day, so why didn't he just come and get her himself? _"Oh yeah, the infamous laziest squad captain…"_ she remembered. Shikamaru indulged her presence by opening one eye, and said, "Ugh, how troublesome; I'm just about to leave and someone finally shows up."

Sakura clenched her fist and was about to deck the lazy nin, when she realized he was speaking of the quiet chakra source behind her.

Dressed in rags from head to toe, the stranger was incredibly tall, with long black hair that was filled with dirt and brambles. There was a dirty sword on his back, and he shuffled silently to the table, his movements were weary, and Sakura wrinkled her nose at his approach. He smelled strongly of sweat, dirt, and musk, to the point that the Hokage's Assistant wanted to gag, and even more so as he advanced. Even Shikamaru had to fight to keep a straight face as he asked what the stranger's business was.

"I'm here to see the Hokage", the stranger ground out in a voice that rang familiarly in Sakura's ear. She knew that voice, but it was so buried under weary bitterness that she couldn't make it out. Shikamaru asked for the man's papers, and the foreigner reached into the rags to pull out his dilapidated documents, hands shaking slightly. Sakura watched the exchange warily, but grabbed the man's hand as he went to place the limb back in his clothes.

"Who are you? You seem… familiar. Have you ever been to Kohona before?"

The man moved his shaggy head back to her, then replied flatly, "Once, but I was young. I really need to see the Hokage though."

Irked by how he skipped her main question, Sakura nibbled slightly on her lip, glaring mildly. Apparently amused, Shikamaru handed the man back his papers, and the visitor ripped his hand away from hers. The lazy ninja watched Sakura's frustrated face and clenching fists, then handed the man his passport and identification, "Here's your papers sir, but I don't think you should go any further." The man paused as he put his things back in place, and growled, "And why is that?"

"Because you are under arrest, Sasuke Uchiha."


	2. Chapter 2

Halocreamdevil does not own Naruto.

Lord Hokage's Dog—Part 2

With a burst of sudden flurry, Naruto's office was more alive than it had ever been, even during the war. He had three commanding officers reporting that an S-Class missing nin was on the loose and was battling Shikamaru and Sakura at the south gate, and that four other captains were on their way to provide assistance to make it a speedy takedown. Three Chunnin were asking for permission to go to the front entrance to offer any aid that they could. Another five had run to help civilians who had gotten injured in the fray, but could not be contacted any longer and Naruto…

Naruto was fighting a headache and a hangover. He should have remembered that Gamabunta could always—always—beat him at a drinking contest, no matter what size the cup.

So when Rock Lee finally arrived in his office, Naruto was not in a good mood. As Naruto's highest ranked ANBU officer came through the door, he nearly backed out—except that Naruto had him pinned by the neck to the wall. Twitching, Naruto let him down and stalked back to his desk, gripping the edge so hard that it crumbled in his hand.

Lee rubbed his throat and coughed slightly, "Unfortunately, Boss, I have more bad news. The missing nin in question is Sasuke Uchiha." The taijustsu specialist flinched as Naruto broke a row of windows then continued, "But I do have good news".

Naruto sighed and turned around, giving Lee an exasperated look, "Your taijutsu, it's faster than before." With a scoff, the Hokage smiled, and put a comforting hand on the commander's shoulder, "Lee, your optimism is putting me to shame!"

Sasuke deflected another of Sakura's attacks and slipped just out of Shikamaru's grasp, as he slid deftly to the left of her fist. He watched her frown turn to an all-out grimace and knew he could not stall much longer. Sakura's powerful fists made craters in the ground he stood on, she was still amazing at chakra control, and now she was angry too, so if he kept running from her attacks she would eventually clip him somehow, and even her touch could send him flying.

'Or dying', he intoned as he narrowly dodged a punch to the heart.

Sasuke would prefer neither, but as his chakra was extremely limited, and the master who controlled his chakra release would not let him fight her at full power. Under his breath, he cursed, and dodged another of Shikamaru's shadows but he knew that the lazy ninja would eventually trap him somehow. Though he was still unnerved; Shikamaru did not usually take on a challenge head on, yet he had challenged him forthright at the gate. Was the lazy ninja so bitter at him that he wanted to take him on himself? And if that was so, was the rest of his genin class just as furious?

Suddenly, as Sasuke barely dodged another of Shikamaru's attacks, Sakura's fist nearly caught him in the gut, but he was born up into a set of hard tan arms away from her assault. He sighed in relief, and relaxed his wiry frame.

"Sakura, Shikamaru, enough!"

Sakura froze on the spot, and her eyes widened impossibly. Shikamaru dropped his stance, and fell in beside the shocked kunoichi. With Sasuke still tucked under his arm, Naruto had the decency to look a bit sheepish.

"There's been a bit of a misunderstanding…"

For the first time in a long time Sasuke was standing in the Hokage's office with his entire genin class. However, this did not bring as much nostalgia as he would have expected, as unlike in the old days, his entire genin class—sans Naruto—had pinned him to the spot with murderous glares; at the front of the room stood Naruto, looking somewhat depressed. A murmur in the room had grown to full out grumbling and wicked whispers, until it reached a dull roar. Stopping his pacing, Naruto cleared his throat loudly. When the whispers only quieted somewhat Naruto lost his patience and whipped around to the crowd of ninja in his office, issuing only a hushed warning.

"Anyone who does not shut up right now gets demoted back to a genin."

The room was suddenly so quiet Sasuke could hear his own heartbeat.

"As you all know, at the end of the Country War, Gaara and I decided to take care of our little Akatsuki problem with the help of Killer Bee. You also know that we were extremely successful, but with one exception—the missing nin, Sasuke Uchiha and Team Hebi escaped before the raid was finished."

Sasuke could barely stand the hot eyes on the back of his neck, and his gaze shifted to the floor directly under Naruto's feet. The dried sweat on his forehead was attempting to move again, and his wrists chafed from the cuffs that several ANBU officers insisted that he wear. _"Just as a formality," Lee said cheerfully, but Kiba finished grimly, "Yeah, so you know where you stand with us."_ Sasuke shifted off of his injured leg and rolled his shoulders, weary and frustrated.

"What you do not know is that your Hokage pursued team Hebi and caught up with them", Naruto sighed and rocked back onto his heels, leaning on his desk, "then, after a two day struggle, defeated their leader."

With almost a snap, Sasuke looked up at Naruto, piercing his eyes. Naruto had never described their fight as a struggle, and from what he saw before he blacked out, the struggle had been purely one-sided, and he was the losing party.

Was Naruto being _gracious_?

The crowd snapped to attention in time with Sasuke, in similar states of surprise with so many questions on their tongues but no opportunity to ask them as Naruto continued in a flat voice.

"With the defeat of their leader, Team Hebi was issued an ultimatum by your Hokage. They could surrender, or face me all at once, and chose the former option." Naruto turned to one of the kunoichi in the room and sighed, "Ain't that right, Karin?"

The kunoichi, previously known to all her peers as Temoya Umehara, was a chunnin, and nodded in ascent to Naruto's statement. "Yes, yes it is." The chunnin around her swallowed, and gave a soft tremble.

Circling around another clique of chunnin, Naruto span about face on his toes to face a still-masked ANBU, then turned his head slightly, "Juugo, is what I just said true?"

Juugo took off the ANBU mask, and nodded. Naruto lingered at the spot until the man groused, "Y-yeah, its true."

Naruto walked back up to the front, and nodded his head somberly, "All members of Team Hebi are now incorporated with my operational force, with exception of one. His name is Sugietsu, and he is now at a civilian post."

With a final turn, Naruto pivoted to Sasuke, who was staked to the floor by his stare. "Sasuke Uchiha, however, is part of my private operational force and has been working for me covertly for the last year and a half. His existence as part of my army," the Hokage hissed, "was supposed to be a well-guarded secret between him and your Hokage, but now that the news is out I supposed that it would be nice for you all to know just who was passing in and out of the city gates. Everyone understand? Good. Any questions?"

Sakura casually lifted a hand, her jaw still quivering in anger; Naruto eyed her suspiciously and motioned for her to speak. "So just what have you had him doing under your command? Seriously, if even ANBU didn't know of his existence in the task force, then what could be so covert that you needed to hide him?" With a gentle frown, Naruto nodded, "From what you've seen of Sasuke's welcome back ceremony, do I really have to answer that?"

Sakura blushed and fidgeted against the doorway, but did not back down. "The thing is, Naruto, we're dealing with a missing nin here, but you've allowed him to serve you under a private force right under our noses. How are we supposed to trust that?" Naruto pouted and leaned on his desk, crossing his legs nonchalantly. "Sakura, I'm offended! You should know that anyone that the Hokage trusts, you can trust! Besides," Naruto paused and looked sadly at Sasuke for a moment, "I made him regret his past decisions the most."

A quiet hum of questions passed through the room as general questions concerning other situations were phrased that Naruto answered noncommittally. The other nin who were concerned about Sasuke's standing and asked just how much clearance he should be given where they worked prattled off their bureaucratic curiosities. No one asked the burning question until Kiba raised his hand and placed the other thoughtlessly in his pocket, fishing for the keys to Sasuke's shackles. Nodding, Naruto smirked, sensing mischief in the jounin's eyes.

"What, exactly, is he to us? I mean, what's his rank?"

A wide grin spread across Naruto's face. Sasuke cursed under his breath and rolled his eyes. How could he ever have thought that Naruto would be gracious?

"Well, Kiba, Sasuke can tell you that for himself." He turned to Sasuke with a terrible beaming face.

"Well, Sasuke, what are you?"

Sasuke cleared his throat, and growled out, "I am the single member of Lord Hokage's Dragon Ops Gambit."

Kiba laughed, and he was the only one until Shikamaru spoke.

"So, in other words, you're Lord Hokage's D.O.G.?"

Naruto visibly stifled a guffaw. Sasuke could barely stop himself from killing the man.

Thanks so much for reading everyone! Serious props to Alex for making sure that everything was okay, and to you for reading.

Reviews = Love = More Chapters Faster

Get it?


	3. Chapter 3

Now, in the Hokage's office stood only the blonde unpredictable ninja who had rocked the world and the constant avenger who had crushed some of the greatest of their time.

"Phew! You smell!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes and took two chopsticks from off Naruto's desk and used them to make the hair that fell in front of his face surrender. Naruto pouted, and gave Sasuke a dry look, "You know, I was eating ramen with those." Sasuke let his hands fall to his sides and grunted, "Hn. Do I look like I care, idiot?"

Casting a glance up and down at Sasuke's disheveled profile, Naruto laughed, "Not at all. Seriously." He received a cold glare for his attempt on humor, but continued, "Sorry, should have given you some time to freshen up before flinging you into a meeting. You look even more like your title." Sasuke leaned on the desk, still glaring, "I bet you just realized what title you gave me too! You're not smart enough to think up an acronym like that on the spot." Cheesing, the blond sat down in his chair and put his feet up, "You're right, I didn't plan it like that, but you realizing it in front of all those people… Sasuke, you don't realize how priceless that was." To only have been back for two hours and already have a degrading nickname… Sasuke groaned. Couldn't Naruto have had just a few more IQ points to justify his misery?

"Well, since you're back already I should make plans for you to go get the next artifact. Your mission is far from over, ya know." Still standing, Sasuke conceded, and pulled a glowing blue pendant out of his rags. "Just what, Uzumaki, are you planning to do with all these Dragon Stones? If you can sense them, why do you have me collecting them?" Naruto smirked and took the pendant, and as the jewel touched his hand the shimmering stone popped out of the silverwork. "I could, but I'd have to make plans, ya know. In fact, you looking for the previous stones all this time, bought me some time to make them."

Sasuke froze and fixed the Hokage with a potent stare. "Wait…" With a foxy smile, Naruto turned to a cabinet that had recently decorated one of the walls, placing the gem with four others that were protected by a set of seals in an elegant box.

"Yes, Sasuke, I'm coming with you this time. Wouldn't you know it?" He turned to find Sasuke's eyebrows somewhere in his hairline, and snickered. "Don't look so surprised! You know I couldn't leave my Lady Leaf without protecting her somehow! I'm coming with you this time, so the process will be faster than before, and these next stones you could not possibly find without me." Grunting, Sasuke crossed his arms and sneered. "What makes you think that?" Naruto shrugged, "It's just that these next stones are the actual artifacts themselves, and not hidden within them. If they get destroyed at any time during the journey, then there would be a huge mess. Think about it Sasuke; you were doing fine on your own. Why would you need me for the ones you could easily get? Anyway, I had a feeling Shikamaru would figure it out pretty quick, so I already had plans in place by the time you were looking for the second gem."

Raising his hand to the cabinet where the jewels were, a faint light issued from his hand, and the cabinet opened to let a small glowing statue of a cat glide to his hand in midair. "Like this one here. I found this one near Ame at a house I stayed in. You see, there is no stone in this one, but it still gives off the same aura."

Sasuke nodded, "Naruto, that jutsu you just did, to bring that cat closer. How long have you known it?" Leaning back in his chair, Naruto shrugged, and answered, "About a year, I think." Sasuke pressed the side of his forehead where a vein was popping up. "And through all those near miss missions, close-to-impossible calls, and near-death experiences, you never once thought of teaching me it?" Naruto's eyes opened wide and he made a quiet 'oh' sound.

"Hehe, sorry?"

He barely had any time to prepare for when Sasuke's fist met his face.

Sakura leaned on her examining table as tears ran down her cheeks in rivulets. She gasped for breath then looked back at Naruto who looked mildly angry, still sporting a fading black eye. "Maa! Stop laughing Sakura, it isn't that funny!" After a few more chuckles, she smoothed out her blouse and stood up straight, still snickering while she glanced at Sasuke's smug face as he leaned against the wall.

Naruto pushed out his lower lip. "I really need this favor. Really! I'll pay you double." She looked back at him, her expression quickly sobering. "You're serious; you really want me to take over while you're gone?" Nodding, Naruto pulled a scroll out of his robes and came down from the table, opening it up to read its contents.

"As by decree of the Hokage, from this day forward until further notice is given, Haruno Sakura shall take on the titles and responsibilities, blah, blah, blah, and a the title of Hokage shall be given unto said notary with all duties and exchange, blah, blah blah, for three months, blah, blah, and two days, blah for the detailed Naruto Uzumaki to—well you know the rest. The point is, yeah, you're taking over for a while. If anybody doesn't like it, they'll have to deal with your fists." Sasuke sniggered at that and looked at Sakura casually, but she frowned back at him. Finally taking the scroll Naruto held with an air of disbelief, she looked at Naruto questioningly. "Are you going with him—I mean—of all people?"

Sasuke nearly flinched at that statement and looked at Sakura's door, but Naruto held up a hand to Sakura and his eyes spoke quiet warning. "Sakura, while we were in the meeting did you hear what I said?" Naruto's eyes were hardened like crystals, and Sakura bit her lip, taking a step back. Her hands crossed over her chest, she gave Sasuke a look of disgust and distain, and with a sigh said, "Naruto, you are one of the most amazing people I know; I'd trust you with my life in a moment—but on the same token, I cannot possibly trust just anyone with yours. This village, all it's shinobi, the elders, the people—all need you Naruto. Heck, I need you!"

She shook her head, adamant. "Naruto, you can't leave the Leaf like this. It's—it's tantamount to treason!" Naruto rolled his eyes, "Clause fourty-two B, part nine; 'in cases where it is under the best interest for the Hokage to take leave of the nation, said Hokage may appoint a Replacement during their absence… and yada, yada, yada… Sakura, do you really think that I would leave the Leaf without a good reason?"

Her jaw clenched and she looked at the floor in shame, but then looked back up at him and drew close, wrapping him in a tight hug. "You'd never tell me why, would you? You dope!" She muttered, "You better not get killed. I'll take him out myself if you do…" Naruto smiled back and placed a comforting hand on her back, flashing one of his famous smiles. "Sakura, you don't need to worry about him doing me any harm at all."

A sharp snap resounded through the room and Naruto's smile quivered.

"…Just worry about those strong arms of yours…"

Sasuke could barely stifle his smirk as Sakura let Naruto fall back onto her examining table, where his face contorted with pain and he gasped for breath. With a quickly reddening face, Sakura tended to Naruto, who tried not to laugh. After a while of fussing and near misses, Sakura stepped back and put her hands on her hips, and gave Naruto a soft look.

"So when are you two leaving? With all the ruckus you just caused," she gave Sasuke a look that could make paint peel, "telling them that you're leaving all of a sudden just seems too suspicious." Naruto leaned back and smiled, "That's exactly why I'm not. In fact, we're not leaving for another two weeks." Sasuke's head snapped to Naruto so fast, Sakura thought it would come off. Leaning towards Sasuke, Naruto wrinkled his nose, "Besides, Sasuke needs a bath and beauty sleep like serious!" Sasuke flicked him on the forehead, and Sakura had a surprising moment of nostalgia as Naruto fussed at him.

"Maybe, just maybe," she thought, "he's really back to being the Sasuke we knew…"

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Just moments after Sakura forcefully threw Naruto out of her office for acting like an idiot, Sasuke had an immersive moment of shock; crowded outside of the door were a remarkable amount of pre-academy children who had suddenly made a circle around the two of them and were peppering Naruto with questions.

"Who's he?"

"Isn't that the Dark One?"

"Why's he here?"

"How'd he get so tall?"

"He sure looks like him…"

"What's that thing on his shoulder?"

"Isn't he Amataseru's guardian?"

"No, Silly! That guy's evil! Lord Hokage wouldn't let a bad guy into the hospital!"

"Stupid! Stupid!"

Finally, Naruto put an end to the bickering by holding a hand in the air. All the genin—save one—snapped to attention. Even the genin who still leaned against the wall turned his gaze to Naruto, who spoke in a calm, fatherly tone. "Actually, Kanye, you are right, this is the Guardian of Amateseru." Gasps echoed all around, and Sasuke felt the floor space around him clear in an instant. "However," Naruto continued, "he isn't evil at all—not by my standards, anyway." Naruto put down his hand, and the genin squirmed and wriggled to get their hands up first. Naruto chose one of the bouncing hands at random, and a little girl asked, "So why isn't he bad anymore?" The other kids concurred and gave reasons why; each one met with surmounting gasps.

"My mom said that he burns villages."

"Mmhmm! And my dad says that he kills babies!"

"Uncle Ando says he eats kittens!"

Naruto turned with a dry look to Sasuke, who was looking off to the side. "Do you?" Sasuke looked back at him in confusion. "Do I what?" Naruto motioned to the little girl, "Eat kittens." Sasuke blanched, "No, definitely not." Naruto nodded, "Okay then, do you kill babies?" Sasuke turned his head to the side, "If Orochimaru counts as a baby." Some of the kids giggled, but the youth next to the wall glowered. "Alrighty then, do you burn villages?" Sasuke shrugged. "Not on purpose." Until Naruto asked one last question the child leaning near the window seemed disinterested. "But if I order you to? Would you do it then?"

No one seemed to expect Sasuke's answer, least of all Sasuke himself, "No—you'd never ask anyone to do something like that, so I'd know that you were an imposter." A beam spread across Naruto's face as he turned to the children. "So, any more questions?" No hands popped up, but the kid on the door looked up at the duo and spoke.

"I have a question for Uchiha, Lord Hokage."

Naruto nodded.

"How come you smell so bad?"

Naruto cracked up, and had to lean on Sasuke to keep his balance as Sasuke's eye twitched in indignation.

As they walked through the town Naruto was taken aback to see Sasuke looking around at the townsfolk, and examining Kohona like a tourist without a camera. He looked a bit confused and—Naruto hesitated to say it, but—lost. It was true though that Kohona had changed tremendously since Sasuke had left; Naruto had mandated some of them, but others sprung from the new population and the jumps in technology they had. The buildings were taller, for sure, and Naruto had instituted special barracks for ninja who did not belong to the clans. Remembering just how hard it had been for him as a kid to get to his classes, Naruto had made the Academy also a dormitory for the children. However, the small village marketplace that Sasuke probably remembered resembled nothing of the credit-based, neon-sign flashing down town that it had become. Attacks on the village and the wear and tear of time had made times hard, so businesses had invested heavily in advertising, and eventually most of the buildings in the market had big, bold colorful signs that made Kohona look like a metropolis.

They rounded another corner, and Naruto smirked, grasping Sasuke's arm to make sure he went the right direction. Keeping right, the shorter man led them into a restaurant that Sasuke knew: Ichiraku's Tsukemen Ramen Stand.

Sasuke could not help the slight smirk that brushed across his mouth as Naruto sat them down. An old man came towards them to take their order, but his eyes were fixed on the pen and paper.

"Welcome, what can I get for you boys?"

Naruto laughed and replied, "Well, a glance would be nice, old man." The old man looked up at Naruto and dropped his pen and pad in shock, coming around the counter with arms outstretched.

"Naruto, m'boy, it's been far too long! We missed you! What could have kept you away?"

Naruto shrugged, "I guess I just don't get moments like this anymore, old man—well, at least not that often. Besides, I just wanted to show an old friend around town." With a casual wave, Naruto motioned to Sasuke, and Mr. Ichiraku's jaw dropped. With a slow nod and a somewhat forced smile, Mr. Ichiraku extended a hand, but Sasuke looked at him in confusion. Chuckling, Naruto took Sasuke's hand from where it was on the counter, and put it palm to palm with Mr. Ichiraku's, wrapping his fingers around the man's hand. Mr. Ichiraku then shook his hand firmly. "It's a foreign custom," Naruto explained, "They do this instead of bowing." "And in a place as packed as this, a handshake is preferable to bowing into someone else," joked Mr. Ichiraku with a smile. With a weak nod, Sasuke returned the hand shake, and the old man turned his head just a tad. "We're glad to have you back where you belong, but I'm hoping that it's for keeps this time, eh?" Taken aback by the question, Sasuke's voice came out soft and quiet, "Of course. This time it's for keeps."

The old man smiled again at Sasuke, but it was genuine this time, and Sasuke barely withheld the smile he wanted to return. He took their orders and disappeared to the back. Following him with his eyes, Sasuke resisted following the man with his feet, but then looked down at the counter. Suddenly, Naruto nudged him with an elbow, and motioned to the old man with his head. "You wanna tell me what that was about? For a second, you looked like you were like, nine again." Opening his mouth to speak, Sasuke had Naruto on edge for a moment, and said, "You know anywhere I can get something stronger than a beer in this town anymore?" Naruto sighed and shook his head in mock amazement. "Sasuke… They may call me the unpredictable ninja, but you took the cake on that one. When did you start drinking anyway?" Sasuke shrugged, and Naruto filled the silence with meaningless chatter and banter, until Mr. Ichiraku came back with their food.


	4. Chapter 4

Lord Hokage's Dog—Part 4

Walking out of Ichiraku's, Sasuke stared up at the star-studded sky as Naruto stretched. A small frown slid across his face and he turned to face Naruto, who was waving him in another direction. "C'mon, you'll be staying in Hokage tower tonight until the Uchiha place is cleaned up a bit. I knew you wouldn't wanna stay in the barracks, so I had it restored to its former dark glory." Sasuke raised an eyebrow at Naruto's dramatic description but had to admit that he agreed with it. Void of its prior inhabitants, the Uchiha Estate had been falling apart, even when it was under Sasuke's care.

They walked a ways more, Naruto telling Sasuke of the changes to the housing district as they sauntered down the street. Sasuke only half-listened, grimacing slightly at the shrieking rips of pain that flowed through his leg. Fighting with Sakura and Shikamaru had torn open the fragile stitches, and a warm trickle of blood slipped across his calf. Trying to concentrate, Sasuke discretely slipped some of his chakra down to the gash to secure the wrappings, but Naruto made an unannounced stop, sending Sasuke careening into his back. He turned around to look at the taller man, and gave him a disapproving frown.

"If you're injured, just tell me next time", Naruto mumbled, "instead of trying to hide it. It makes things more complicated."

Grumbling, Naruto grabs him by the arm, and when Sasuke thinks that Naruto's going to drag him to Hokage Tower, he feels his feet come off the ground.

"Naruto, what the—"

"I'm carrying your sorry butt, teme! Just how many brain cells did you lose while you were on that mission? Trying to stand while you've got an open wound the size of Kohona…"

So, he's on Naruto's shoulder now, and he should be fighting this, but he's too drained to argue. Besides, Sasuke's lost whatever honor he had left, and getting off that leg is fantastic; having to listen to Naruto's lecture is worth it.

But does Naruto really have to carry him like this in the middle of town?

Breathing a sigh, Sasuke notices women at the late markets snickering and giggling behind their palms. He rolls his eyes, but a fierce blush is attempting to work its way to his cheeks. Naruto's got him like a sack of potatoes across his shoulder and the indignity of it all is almost too much. The fact that Naruto's a couple of heads shorter than him doesn't help as his hands dangle at the man's lower back.

What really irks Sasuke though is that Naruto is going faster than before, as if he knew Sasuke was injured the entire time, and was just waiting for him to say something.

If Sasuke wasn't so tired, he'd insult him or knock his block off, but that would probably mean falling, and they're almost to Hokage Tower already. His eye twitches again as Naruto effortlessly takes out his keys to the door and without even stopping to put Sasuke down, he's walking up the stairs to the living quarters, fixing water to make tea, and calling Iruka-sensei.

This is getting chronic; Sasuke needs Naruto to put him down. Now.

And before Sasuke knows it, his head is slapped against a pillow, with Naruto crouched over the side of a mattress. Naruto knows just how much humiliation Sasuke can take, and when it comes to moments like these, he doesn't mess around.

Looking around, Sasuke realizes that they're in one of Hokage Tower's many bedrooms, and he's lying on a bed so soft that he is convinced that it is air. It's so good to be down, and that pain in his leg is subsiding a bit because Naruto his healing it.

Wait.

Naruto? Healing?

Warm, tan hands are palm-faced to his bare leg, and the chakra radiating off of them is slowly reconnecting tissues and removing splinters of steel and wood from when Sasuke tried to stint the wound. Engaging his Sharingan, Sasuke realizes that this particular chakra is limited because it's not Naruto's at all, but he recognizes it as Sakura's.

Craning his head to look at Naruto, Sasuke's voice sounds foreign as he murmurs, "How?"

Naruto just shrugs, stretches as he finishes his task, "I knew that my chakra sends your seal on edge, so I just kinda… um… remolded it to feel like Sakura's."

"You remolded your chakra."

"Well… yeah."

If there was ever a moment where Naruto's utter cluelessness is striking, this is it. The man doesn't even realize just how big the thing he has just done is, and Sasuke's too fed up with him to even try to explain.

"Dead last, you don't even realize, do you?"

Naruto's innocent confused expression turns on a dime, and he elbows Sasuke's renewed (but still very sore) thigh, firing off a look of such irritation, that despite his pain, Sasuke has to fight not to laugh out loud. He thinks of something though and his humor is negated immediately.

All the chunnin were at the meeting—but Iruka wasn't, and for some reason, this irritates him, along with the fact that he hasn't seen Kakashi since he arrived. The fact that Naruto isn't forthcoming with this information puts him on edge.

Oh, and the fact that Naruto's stolen his pants.

Yeah, that's a real kicker. Sasuke's underwear has been hoisted up so high; he's beginning to question whether he's wearing boxers or a G-string. He spots his ripped pants hanging from the frame of a wastebasket, and he knows he's going to kill Naruto if what he thinks Naruto did is true.

"You ripped my pants off, didn't you?"

Sasuke says this with a straight face, but once the words are out he has to fight to keep it. A heavy blush and a convoluted look overtake Naruto's face, and he knows those were the wrong words to use. Nevertheless, the blonde man hops off the bed and motions jerkily to a set of new clothes in the corner. Stammering, he informs Sasuke that there are new clothes over there, he'll be out front, oh, when did he become such a pervert, and take a shower, the bathroom's over there, and man oh man he smells.

He leaves Sasuke with wearing only a shirt and boxers and an amused look on his face.

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Sasuke showers and feels the world go right again. The creak in his muscles is gone, along with the smell, the grime, and the caked blood. It's been a long while since he's had an opportunity to clean himself at all, what with the running, the hard undercover work, and with the constant, urgent needs that have been bang-banging at the back of his head. He's a little ashamed that he's come scrambling back to Kohona for what he needs, but one of his needs he can only get here.

Sasuke needs food—or at least money for it. Naruto's missions are long exhausting things that drain him of energy, and he couldn't keep working side jobs in order to get more money because of that injury.

Sasuke also needs rest, sweet, blessed rest. He could get that almost anywhere, but Kohona was where he was headed.

Sasuke needed that leg fixed, and he still ponders about that thing Naruto did with his chakra as he dresses himself.

Most importantly, however, Sasuke needed more of Naruto's chakra.

He hisses in disgust as he spots the long jagged scar on his stomach, then wrenches on a shirt, his mind flooding with memories of how he came this low, grumbles at the fact that he ran when Naruto came after Akatsuki, scowls that Naruto beat him not once, but twice. Cursing quietly, he leans against he bathroom wall as he recalls the final moments of their second fight.

When Naruto finally found Sasuke after his first defeat, they were about to duke it out again. In retrospect, Sasuke should have realized this was a bad idea. After a week of fighting, it came down to which one of them had enough chakra to keep going, and Naruto wins that contest every time.

_Sasuke knew he was going to lose, so in a last ditch attempt, he goes for the classic approach—sticking a Chidori wherever he can find on Naruto's anatomy. However, because he's so drained, it misses, and he's almost dead; there's barely enough chakra to keep breathing._

_Stumbling, Sasuke crushes his hands into the forest floor, wishing he could summon his snakes, could dredge up some sort of defense, but Naruto's coming like a train that he cannot stop. The evening air is thin and cold, and stings Sasuke's lungs as he takes another shuddering breath, one of his hands to his stomach to hold in the blood and organs that slip warm across his fingers. Sasuke coughs, and a tremolo of pain ricochet through his torso as he digs violently into the ground._

_He's got to keep going, has to, or Naruto will find him, and he's sure by now that he will kill him. His eyes are burning now, searing into his skull—he's had his Sharingan engaged so long that he's convinced that this is what normal sight is like, and it doesn't help that it's dark outside. Sasuke hates this; this hiding, this weakness that Naruto is putting him through, but if he comes out he knows he's dead, or worse—stuck in some Kohona prison, rotting underneath the village he hates._

_He wishes that Karin was here with her intelligence and constant support. He wishes that Juugo were here so he could let him take over long enough for him to recover. He wishes that Sugietsu were here to distract Naruto somehow, because Naruto is coming, coming, coming._

_Amateseru licks the top of the trees and slowly burns down as Naruto just barely avoids getting touched by the flames and is so close that Sasuke can hear it when his sweat from the heat falls to the ground just to his right. And Naruto is coming, coming, coming!_

_Sasuke silently balks at just how afraid he is now of the man that used to be his best friend and the dead last beneath him. Underground now, he's reminded that the rest of his family is underground too, and that he may be coming to permanently see them soon._

_But Sasuke doesn't want to die, is desperate not to, and tries his best to suppress the small beacons that the miniscule amount of chakra left in him give off. Despite his fear he's fading in and out of consciousness and hoping that Uzumaki either finds him or leaves soon, because his below ground burrow is running out of air and space. Dizziness overtakes him, because his chakra is so low, and is rapidly dwindling._

_Just as Sasuke's heartbeat begins to die off, a hand rips through the soil and pulls him out the ground by the hair, dragging him to the surface and dragging him through the dirt, ripping open his stomach wound to allow his organs to steam in the fall air. Sasuke is so sure he's going to die, is absolutely certain that the chakra poised in Naruto's hand is to kill him that he tenses his entire body and shuts his eyes._

_When Naruto brings his hand down, Sasuke experiences a relief so deep that he nearly cries, but also confusion; he's not dead, and neither is he unconscious. In fact, he feels more alive than he ever has before. There's a hot tingle that is flooding his body, and makes his whole being flutter with something akin to ecstasy. He opens his eyes and the world pours into his head like a tub of hot water being funneled down his nose._

_Everything is in intense color; the sky is a darker black, the dusky moon a creamier yellow, and Naruto's hair looks like a halo of gold. Sasuke gasps at this, and can taste the air; the consuming taste of nature almost makes him sick. Until he smells it, and it is an intoxicating concoction of musk, Naruto's scent, his own smell, grass, and the wet of decomposing plant matter._

_He takes a shuddering breath in, overwhelmed._

_And concentrates just enough that he can feel Naruto giving him more of… of—whatever that stuff is—chakra, yeah. But his heart is pumping like a piston, and Sasuke is enamored with the feel of his own blood rushing through his arteries and veins._

_Then the pain comes._

_Sasuke knew he was injured, but it's alarming when all his sensations are cranked up to their maximum abilities, and he can't bite back the scream that rips out of his throat, and he feels the skin on Naruto's hands against his chest pushing him down._

_Sasuke's brain overloads, and plunges him into vivid images. He thinks he sees his mother wearing a rainbow colored dress dancing with his father on one of the tree branches, Kakashi arguing with a toad as big as he is, and the sun colliding with the moon in a spray of rice and hot oil. He then realizes that his is a hallucination, because his father burnt that dress when his mother and he had a fight a long time ago._

_So instead of pondering on it any further, Sasuke blacks out._

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	5. Chapter 5

HaloCreamDevil doesn't own Naruto, but wishes she could draw like the man who does...

Lord Hokage's Dog--Chapter 5

Sasuke's fingers are pruned after taking so long in the shower, and they feel a little waterlogged as he pushes them through his moist hair. It's grown long and comes down past his shoulder blades, so Sasuke debates whether he should cut it or not as he stares blankly into the mirror. Passing a hand over a smooth pale face, Sasuke wonders if he should have shaved or not, but stops when he looks into his own eyes.

Sasuke always knew that the Sharingan would wear down his eyes—this happens for all Uchihas, and he was counting on it to defeat Itachi. He hadn't planned on being alive long enough to go blind, and soon after Itachi's death, he almost did, to the point where it was almost painful to not have his Sharingan engaged to improve his sight. Cloudy rings had formed around his pupils and were making a slow march to the interior until Naruto's chakra burst had sent them away.

He won't admit this to Naruto, and barely admits it to himself, but it's just one more thing Naruto helped him regain.

As Sasuke walks out of the room, he gets lost on the way to Naruto's living quarters and has to search for Naruto's chakra in order to find him. Before he enters the room, he notices another faint chakra source, and puzzles over who it is. He finds the door open, and walks in.

Sasuke's not ready for what he sees.

The other chakra source is Iruka-sensei. He's in a wheelchair, and he looks worn-down to say the very least. He offers a soft smile to Sasuke, and because it's Iruka, Sasuke gets this warm sad feeling.

"Hello, Sasuke, it's been a long time."

Sasuke nods and isn't sure what to do with himself so he offers a polite greeting back, but he's so shocked he can't really remember how he responds. Iruka's head tilts just slightly and Sasuke watches as his former teacher maneuvers the chair to look at him. A hard knot forms in Sasuke's throat and he doesn't know what to do with his hands, which are too big in contrast to Iruka's which lay cool and quiet on his lap now. Anywhere he puts them seems too controlled, too obvious, too awkward, or just plain un-Sasuke.

"You're back."

Iruka says this with quiet astonishment, as if he wants to say it louder but his voice will not let him. Again, so his voice does not give him away, Sasuke just nods. His former Academy teacher's look is contemplative, and a little sad.

"Finally."

For Sasuke, a small weight lifts off of his shoulders when Iruka speaks. It gives him a little hope that maybe not everyone is throwing darts at his wanted posters, or spitting when they pass by the Uchiha complex. Oh, or has a fist ready when they see him at the door.

Sasuke nearly winces remembering the look on Sakura's face, but Naruto steps in and his current situation feels just a bit better.

"Ah, Iruka-sensei, I see you've found my new guest! Just in time too!"

Iruka gives him a quizzical look, "Just in time for what?" Naruto just gives him a five mile smile and claps his hands together.

"Food, of course! Duh!"

Naruto ushers both of them into the kitchen, and surprises Sasuke with his slightly higher than average cooking skills; there's something other than ramen ready for Iruka and he, however Naruto opts out of the actual meal for ramen with cooked vegetables and a glass of milk.

Iruka finds the strength from somewhere to yell at him as Naruto just laughs and downs the last of his milk. Sasuke's content to find that some things actually never change.

All ninja have their bad habits, especially when it comes to food and drink. They are all human soldiers after all, so it's to be expected.

Sasuke remembers Sakura's; she used to eat, but then she would forget she had, and throw up her most recent meal in order to keep her speed and figure.

It's a horrible habit, but Sasuke can identify with it just a little.

Naruto's is simple; ramen, milk, and more recently, a beer at every meal. The ramen acts as a carbohydrate weight for the rest of the meal, and the beer helps him get his calories.

Sasuke definitely identifies with the beer.

Sasuke's is a combination of the worst parts of their eating habits. He gains weight purposefully before his missions, drinks alcohol while he's on the mission, but hesitates to eat anything until he gets back. Personally, he thinks that his is the worst, but it eliminates having to stop to find food in a lot of locations, especially if the food is poisoned, inedible, or tainted. His immune system is compromised though, but Naruto's chakra makes up the slack.

Consequently, when Naruto said that they would have two weeks before they left, mentally, Sasuke broke out his chopsticks and kicked off his shoes.

So why in the world is Sasuke standing over a vat of boiling oil as old women with four foot spoons shout orders to him while he sweats into a puddle in this awful outfit? Naruto, that's why. Whatever happened to that break he was supposed to have?

Oh, last night.

Sasuke hisses as his head throbs and he recounts the day after he came back.

Spinning into the kitchen as Sasuke shoves down breakfast, Naruto looks positively energetic, and with that amount of mischief, Sasuke's sure that Hokage Mountain must be on fire with paint running down the sides. Bounding, the shorter man picks up a piece of toast that times itself to jump directly into his hand, flips a pan of eggs that are perfectly done to land on said toast, grabs a slice of cheese from the fridge to top it, and jams the whole thing into Sasuke's mouth with a sparkle.

"Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasuke! Guess what?"

Sasuke bites, literally and figuratively.

"Hn?"

"Well," Naruto drawls, "After Iruka-Sensei went home last night, I called him back to discuss some things." Sasuke raises an eyebrow. Where is Uzumaki going with this? Uzumaki turns the corner of the counter and slides across as his words slide. Absentmindedly, Sasuke wonders just how much paint Naruto used, and if Umino was in on it. Still cheesing, Naruto slips over to the cupboard and takes out a cup for tea.

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

Sasuke rolls his eyes and turns away from Naruto, who laughs and holds his hands up in surrender. "Just kidding! Just kidding! I'm surprised that you're so interested! Well, anyway, we talk and we're about to get off the phone when Iruka-sensei says, 'Naruto, he's changed'. It being Iruka-sensei, I know who he means. So I say, 'Yeah, but you expected that, right.' And I say—"

"The point, Uzumaki; get to it quickly."

"Well, there's this party…"

Sasuke gives him a look that pins the sentence to the floor.

"Aw, c'mon, Sasuke! It's just gonna be some tribal affair! There'll be like," Naruto has to stop to count, and Sasuke leaves the room as he tails him, "like two ninja there! Seriously!"

"No, Naruto, not now, not ever."

He keeps walking, but Naruto stops as he enters the dining room. That's when Naruto gets this confident look and Sasuke grits his teeth as he hears the words.

"It's an order!"

He stops and turns on his heel to effectively fire a knee into Uzumaki's gut.

Naruto grins anyway. Sasuke goes anyway.

When they arrive, the party has already started, and Naruto did not lie. It is most definitely a tribal affair.

In the center of the party is a bonfire seven meters high, where meat roasts and people dance around. Alcohol is passed out to everyone there, and anyone who is not drinking is drumming, talking, or dancing. Women with paint on their faces mark men with red and blue with a noxious concoction and circle the fire with sheer cloth skirts. The group who hosts the party isn't from this side of the ocean, and it makes Sasuke wonder about Naruto's amazing negotiating skills, because each of them—man and woman—is built for killing. Yet here they are, joking, laughing, and kissing around a bonfire with the same people they were told to murder.

A short woman with a brazen manner comes up to the two of them and starts speaking to Naruto in a language that is all fluid syllables and soft differentiations. Her 'r's and 'l's slur together and purr as she talks at them and Sasuke cannot communicate that he does not understand. Naruto does it for him and shocks Sasuke as the consonants slide across his lips like milk, and the woman turns to Sasuke with a look of apology and a soft 'oh' of her mouth. She puts her hands on her hips and her many bracelets jangle as she grinds out a language Sasuke can barely understand.

"Mmm! I am Onaii. You no speaka der Uropa, eh? Iz sokay, we find you good girl, good drink, fun time, no?"

It is actually more of a statement than a question, and in hesitation, Sasuke steals a nervous glance at Uzumaki, who chuckles and gives a subtle nod. He nods to the woman, and she cracks a smile that's blindingly white against the contrast of her skin while hooking an arm through his before Sasuke has a chance to protest.

"Jah! I show you Coora, she give you drink, good time, find you foxes many."

If that means what he thinks it means, Sasuke may get smashed _and_ laid tonight.

But foxes?

Onaii drags him around the other side of the bonfire to a gaggle of women who smile at him. He's relieved that none of them stare too long, but only deliver quick appreciative glances. Somewhere in the middle of the group, one of the women rolls her eyes as the others make feminine noises.

That's the one he'll go to. Strong minded women are rare.

She's petite, but pretty stocky, and her greatest redeeming quality is her confidence and unimpressed sneer as the others croon. Her short braids wrap around a stick of smoking incense, and as she moves two sinewy, tattooed arms to tighten the knot Sasuke gives her legs a quick glance as her wraparound skirt swishes. A dagger is holstered close to her thigh, and he cracks a smirk that earns him more coos and forces his attention back to the crowd gathered around him. Onaii shushes the girls and names each one of them, as they hear their names they give a strange sideways duck of a bow, until Onaii says the name Coora, and Sasuke's eyes are pulled back to the uninterested girl as she gives a casual shrug.

Oh, so _she's_ Coora?

Onaii pulls him towards the girl and talks to her in soft hushed tones until she cracks a lopsided smile and raises an eyebrow at him. Coora nods and claps a strong arm around him. For the second time tonight, he's surprised.

"Onaii tells me that you are shinobi. I think then, that we should get you drunk and very fat, friend."

Well, at least she's straightforward. Sasuke couldn't be more compliant with that plan.

Pulling him through the people, Coora takes him to a smaller circle of older women who are pounding away at some sort of rice meal around a smaller fire with several pots. He smells meat and spices and his mouth is already watering. The women converse upon his arrival with Coora and give him looks of mirth and contented joy as they use their skirt edges to remove the pot lids and talk animatedly to the female warrior beside them. Suddenly he's handed a bowl with a soft white blob inside, and Coora pulls him to the pots, motioning for Sasuke to look in each one.

"This one red, it makes small children cry. Black is very good; warms the belly, not the mouth. Green makes _muchapen_ weep."

He repeats, questioning, "_muchapen_?"

She points to a group of big, hard-looking men that laugh loudly and beat on each other's broad chests with their knuckles.

He points to the pot of green spices and chicken. All the women laugh, but indulge him by taking up some of the meat and pouring it on the side of the white lump in his bowl. Coora takes a piece of the white glob and pinches it off the mass, forming it into a small bowl in her hands, and scoops up some of the black meat and sauce with it, then slips it into her mouth. She makes a 'mm' sound, and licks her fingers, motioning for Sasuke to copy. He does, and when the green sauce hits his tongue a ripple of heat burns through his body. To say the least, Sasuke enjoys it. He expresses his appreciation by wolfing down the rest of the meaty concoction, and the women give him amused looks of shock. They all laugh, and one of the old women beckons some of the muchapen as she pours him another serving. The men make astonished noises and laugh too as he finishes a second bowl. One of them squabbles with the old women, apparently in disbelief until she hands him a bowl. The muchapen attempts to eat it, but ends up running to a nearby stream, where he spits it out and dunks his head under water. Everyone laughs and Sasuke feels as a small blush of pride curl over his face. Coora and the other men laugh and clap him on the back, ushering him over to a set of logs and another old woman who stirs a cauldron of something strong-smelling.

Sasuke nearly cheers as he sits across from Coora and a bowl of dark liquid is presented to each of them. He can recognize alcohol no matter what culture serves it, and a drinking contest is always a welcome thing when drinks are free.

"Where we come from, women are the best ones to drink, and I am the best of my friends. This drink", she motions to the bowls of steaming liquid in front of him, "Is _imawah_, and it makes boys into warriors." "But this," she motions to the bigger bowl of darker alcohol in front of her, "is _jomawah;_ it makes warriors into conquerors and demons," she sneers. He nods, but switches the bowls in front of them, to much laughter. Coora laughs too and says to the men around, "This shinobi, heh, has more _yesol_ than all you!" The old woman stirring the pots smacks her on the back of the head and gives her a stern look as the men count down the drinking contest. They both reach for their bowls and tip them back, and for a startling few seconds, Sasuke sees stars.

This stuff could burn a hole through his sword!

He quite nearly chokes, but finishes the bowl and slams it down on the log just as Coora casually rests hers down. They go through the next bowl, and the next, and Sasuke's head is already spinning just a bit, but Coora looks like she's just had a glass of water or two. By the fourth bowl, Sasuke's sporting a full on blush, but Coora just smiles and switches their bowls, knowing just how strong the _jomawah_ is.

"Let me this one, and you can have the boys cup," she says with a cocky sneer, and Sasuke really wants to let her, but he can't back down from a challenge like that. The fire crackles and Sasuke switches the bowls back, and sits up straight for the next one as the men jeer.

By the sixth bowl, Sasuke's trying to hide his hiccups, and she's gotten a little gigglier. At the eighth bowl, the elder calls it off, and a man hands each of the _muchapen_ a drum. The elder, with a sneaky look on his face, holds out a drum to Sasuke, who gets up to get the drum, but ends up walking a couple feet sideways of it. There's more laughter, and Sasuke, embarrassed, puts his face in his hand, but accepts the drum anyway. All the men make a wide circle around the bonfire, and one of the elder women hands him a milky, cool drink that makes the world come gradually back into focus as the young women make a tight chain between the men and the fire. He notices that Coora's not in the chain, but instead grabs a drum and sits between him and the elder.

"A game," she says softly, her breath still strong with alcohol as she whispers into his ear. He nods, and watches closely as the elder begins to drum in a simple, repetitive beat. The young man next to him drums with him after a while. The elder quiets his drum and the young man takes over, layering another beat, but then the elder begins again with his original beat once more. Girls in the center who have been excitedly waiting all this time, dance to the rhythm with stomping motions and contribute to the sound with the jingling of their jewelry and the little hand cymbals they tap together in perfect time. Suddenly, each of the men slap their hands to the face of the drum one after the other in the circle, and each of the girls squeal and catch each other's hands as their drummer stops playing, and Sasuke barely has time to stop before it gets to him. The elder looks around suspiciously and then makes a loud sound as he points to one of the men whose slapped-down hand doesn't match the others. The man makes a mock-disappointed look, and cries out, to the amusement of many, and leaves the circle.

_'Oh, so that's it,'_ Sasuke marvels, _'A matching game.'_

Sasuke checks his own hand, and breathes a sigh of relief, his matches all the others. They begin playing again, after the elder sorts out a few more men, but with a faster, more complex beat this time.

Eventually skill wins out over luck, and at about the fifth round, Sasuke finds himself out, sitting with Coora after she makes a blatantly silly move when he drops out. They're both drinking again, but this time it's not competitive. They sit in silence until Coora gives him a serious, contemplative look.  
"You are a lost man."

Sasuke turns from watching the complex drum circle to watching her. She studies him for a bit, "You have many, many scars," she says, opening her hands wide to frame his body, "here", and then places a hand over his heart, "and here", she finishes.

Sasuke nods. It's strange, he notes, that she knows him so well. But without a language to hide behind, maybe it isn't so strange.

"You lost it that made you go. What did you lose?"

Really, he doesn't want to tell her his history, doesn't think she'll understand. She reads him like a book though, so lying is out of the question. However, he just doesn't know how to answer. She nods curtly and sits for a while thinking.

Then she turns from him and lifts up her shirt. He panics and turns away, but she laughs, placing a hand on his shoulder. He turns to see her, and finds her back fully exposed.

Coora is a canvas; her spine is covered in several different animals, her back is awash with blood and mythical gods and monsters roam her shoulder blades, but between the bones, he notices is the image of a dog with wings, baring it's teeth as blood drips from it's wings.

"In our land, you get mark for killing enemies. A bird for family, a dog for traitors, and blood for powers. The dog, eh? You see it has wings, yes?"she says, somewhere between a whisper and a sacred vow. "Yeah," he whispers as he traces the tattoo, completely focused on each ink line. Coora gathers herself, then continues "My father, he betray our country, our family. Very powerful warrior, but traitor. They send me to bring him back home, but he no come with me. So Ancients say kill him."

Sasuke's fingers stop where they are, he doesn't want to hear this, can't, but something, what it is he does not know, compells him to stay. His hesitation is immediately picked up by Coora, who forces out her tale quickly, "I do not, I cannot. I beg and beg for him to come home, but no." Looking down at the tattoo with so much emotion, Sasuke's hand forms a shaking fist that he presses to his body. Broken and shaking, he voice barely register in his mind."I fight him, he fights me like stranger. I think, he is still there, no? But he is not, and his blood pours into my hands like so many drops of rain." Sasuke's arm is trembling now, and he bites his lip to steady himself, to cling to her words because each one is wrapped in the meaning he's searching for. "So I hate everything. Hate the sun for it's light, hate my mother for her love, hate water for looking at me when his face is mine." Blood is running down the side of his mouth now, but he is fixed to the spot, wondering how she got through the pain, how she got _here_. Suddenly, her voice brightens, taking him with it into the light, "Onaii, she saves me from myself, yah? She fights me and say, 'You stupid girl! All your hate, is nothing! So selfish you dog! No honor to your family, no honor to you! Find your reason!' So I do. Onaii is my reason. My friend. My challenge. She helps me find all my reasons; the sun, the moon, the small children, the music, and the friends."

Sasuke's eyes are tight now, and he's shaking.

"She gives me her reason."

There's silence, then Sasuke whispers, "And what reason is that?"

"Peace."

Sasuke quavers within himself as she leaves with their bowls, he stands, because he desperately needs to take a walk and find Naruto. Where _is_ Naruto? It has to be somewhere early in the morning now, because the moon is almost through the sky, and his body chooses just the wrong time to remember that he still has alcohol in his system. Stumbling into trees, he barely remembers that the elder told him to drink all of the tonic, and that half of it is still sitting in the cup, forgotten. Naruto comes back into view and says something that Sasuke cannot quite comprehend because the world has suddenly decided to go fuzzy again. Sasuke barely registers that he throws up, and the world gets dark all of a sudden.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

**Just where the Heck those tribal people came from**: I figure that since the Naruto world is an actual world, there's another side to it, hopefully not just one flat map. I'm also sort of abusing the Naruto movies and making them adjust to my own ideas. Like, in The Stone of Gelel, there was Temujin, and gypsies (Yay Gypsies!). Besides, if that was all there was to the Naruto world, a black Raikage just wouldn't be possible, and Naruto's hair would probably be black.  
Hmm, on that train of thought, so would Gaara's...

But yeah, I'm taking a few liberties with the Naruto globe. It'd be impossible to write this story otherwise. Those folks from this chapter came from the other side of the sea, on most Naruto maps this would be the West of the land of Fire. They got introduced to the ninja world when their leaders decided that it would be a great idea to take it over _(Manifest Destiny HOORAY!)_ But then they met their match with Naruto.

Geez, is this two chapters already where I end the chapter with Sasuke blacking out? Sheesh!

Thousands of thanks to Alex and Ex-Kogito for all their help! Love you guys!

Review, review, review, and it will come back to you, you, you!


	6. Chapter 6

Halocreamdevil could never own Naruto. Like ever.

Lord Hokage's Dog, Chapter 6

Iruka Umino sat in the midday sun next to Ichiraku Ramen, waiting. Stretching like a cat, he laughed softly when he recalled why he was waiting; Naruto had called him at some unholy hour in the night, howling something about Sasuke and how he had thrown up on him in a drunken stupor. "That teme," he cried insolently, "is so gonna pay for my new sandals! You better believe it!" However, if Iruka had laughed before, it was nothing compared to his barely suppressed mirth now.

Before him was Sasuke Uchiha, standing with the sun to his back, a stray wind whipping his hair about. He wore a red and white sunrise keikogi with blood red calligraphy pants and white geta with a rebellious look on his face. Sasuke scowled at Iruka as his former sensei tried to stop laughing.

"Sasuke, you look like you just stepped out of a variety show!" Iruka wheezed, wiping a tear from his eye. "Oh, oh, I'm sorry, but that's just priceless!" Growling, Sasuke grumbled, "Let's just get to where Naruto wanted me to go." Finally nodding, Iruka wheeled in the direction in front of Sasuke, shaking his head the entire time. Walking slowly behind him, Sasuke looked at his sensei in the midday sun, seeing him in a new light. Iruka looked healthy and rested now, and perhaps a little bit stronger than before.

They went on in silence, people giving Iruka a wide berth for fear of their toes being crushed and Sasuke a wide walkway because of his size—he brushed six foot two now, and had the ability to look down on whomever he wanted. He just wished there were a few less feet between his head and Iruka's. Turning the corner through a dirty alleyway, Iruka had to give his wheels an extra shove when they got caught between two slabs of broken cement where sprays of grass broke through. Seeing him struggle, Sasuke took the handles and lifted the wheel free, only to have Iruka nearly fall out onto the pavement. Sasuke rushed to catch him, but Iruka held up his hand to stop him.

"I'm okay, I'm okay, we're almost there anyway, so don't worry—", Iruka suddenly stopped talking, meeting Sasuke's look of concern. He placed a tentative hand on Sasuke's shoulder, and let the tall ninja help him back in his wheelchair. After he dusted off his hands he gave Sasuke a contemplative look, and still in wonder said, "Naruto never told you what happened to Kakashi and I, did he?" Sasuke shook his head, and dusted off Iruka's knees, then pushed the chair gently forward, listening intently. With a frown on his face Iruka crossed his arms. "When Naruto, Killer Bee, and Gaara decided to take on Akatsuki, they decided it in secret, and they chose who they would take on. Killer Bee was given Zetsu, Gaara got Kisame, and Naruto-- Naruto chose to take on you and Madara." Sasuke knew that much, but like a good teacher Iruka seemed obliged to give him a refresher.

He hadn't seen Naruto and Madara's fight, but he knew that Madara had underestimated Naruto in one of the worst ways possible; he assumed that Naruto would rely on Kyuubi's power, and thought that he could just brush the young ninja off. He could still remember the look on Sugietsu's face as he reported the news that Madara was dead—all confusion, shock and brazen energy. Iruka's voice plunged into his thoughts, "Madara had no way of knowing that just how strong Naruto had become, but neither did Kakashi or me. Naruto didn't tell us anything and the three of them left under cover of night. When Kakashi told me, I pretty much begged him to let me come with him to stop Naruto before he got himself horribly killed and put the power of the fox in the hands of that man."

The alleyway ended, and the broken sidewalk continued down a corridor into an eve of bikes and clustered apartments, where children swung from laundry wires and played on wiry balconies. Iruka told him to take a left, and they rumbled on, Iruka's voice wrapped in frustration, Sasuke listening intently. "When we got there the fight had already started, and we ended up in the way. Kakashi, he got out of the way, but I got used as cannon fodder. I blacked out during most of the fight because of that, but when I came to Kakashi gave me this look like I had just missed a message from heaven." Iruka gave a dry chuckle, but it was hollow. "I don't think I'll ever forget what I saw then, though."

Iruka gave a passing mention of turning right, and Sasuke did so automatically, not really paying attention to where they were going. Iruka's head fell, and his eyes stared pointedly at his lap where his hands were; palms turned upward in a grasping motion, as if he could catch the memory again, "There was Naruto, and he was holding onto Uchiha Madara's dead body like you hold something valuable and broken, you know, like a good sword that just broke, or a beautiful watch that stopped working. I may not be sure what happened, but I know that it was important--and I missed it!" Iruka threw up his hands, "And they still won't tell me anything. It's so infuriating--ah! We're here!"

Like a good ninja, Iruka had been keeping track of their surroundings, unlike Sasuke, who was invested in every word Iruka said, but now his attention ripped from Iruka to the sight in front of him, and his eyebrows rose in surprise. In front of him was the biggest tree in Kohona, only, it was not a tree--it was a building. Somehow Iruka had gotten the wheelchair free from Sasuke's hands, and was rolling his way up a wooden spiral ramp to reach the top of the tree where the building was. Still in shock, Sasuke wondered at the flowers growing into and onto the walkway as he followed Iruka until they reached a set of heavy wooden doors. Opening them, Sasuke was nearly bowled over by a fragrance of food that made his mouth water as Iruka rolled merrily inside, speaking to a man who nodded and went into what Sasuke assumed was the kitchen. Iruka rolled back to him and toned happily, "Naruto wanted me to tell you that you'll be helping out some aquaintences of his for a little while, but then you'll be back to regular duty." Sasuke replied in an unimpressed drawl, "Or until I finish paying for him to get a new pair of shoes, right?" Chuckling, Iruka delivered him over to the head chef.

A small, plump woman came out of the kitchen's double doors, wiping her flour smeared hands on a red checkered apron, and brushing wiry blond hair out of two squinty eyes to look at Sasuke. She walked around him, appraising him, it seemed, and delivered her verdict to Iruka.

"Eh, he vill do. Tell Naruto zat zis good enough, but Lee is better."

Sasuke frowned at the indignity of being compared to Kohona's Green Beast, but the old woman swept him into the kitchen with her folded apron. "Come, come, I show you around. You vill be helping Powlo vit the boxes and soup pots."

Powlo was a bitter-looking young man whose eyes were aged far beyond his years. He greeted Sasuke with a tired 'oh', then continued stirring a massive pot that with a spoon almost his height, sweat dripping down his collar. The old woman walked over to him and hit him on the hip with the flat part of a butcher blade to get his attention, "Say hello, Powlo," she drawled, "he vill be jour new friend for zeh rest of the veek. I expect you two to get along, yes? Good. Now show him around." Powlo sighed and turned the fire down under the pot to wipe his forehead. "Follow me," he muttered, and lead Sasuke to a freezer, where he sees rows of wooden boxes stacked ten high. Powlo waved to the boxes then sighed," These are Issen's ingredients, you know, the old lady. She'll ask you to get at least ten of these at a time, and be quick about it, because you know that butcher knife she carries?" Sasuke nods and he continues, "Let's just say the guy before Lee got gelded from fifteen feet away. That knife is not for cooking." An involuntary shudder passes through Sasuke's body, and Powlo walks a little further into the freezer, showing Sasuke where everything is. "I can help you load the boxes but I've got a job to do too, so don't expect me to help you every time. If you want know where something is, ask me or one of the girls though, because Issen will gladly give you a free haircut--assuming you don't mind losing your scalp too."

It's not a hard job, in Sasuke's opinion, and there is no social hassle either. The girls are all older than he is, and a couple of them match him in height (which Sasuke finds mildly intimidating), but they are all stern, business-minded women who show him how to cook some of the dishes. "Add zeh salt now," Bruna, the oldest of them says, swishing about a warning spoon in her hand, as he stirs a pot with seasonings, "and all zeh veggies are hover zer." She points to a mountain of diced onions and carrots, and then hands Sasuke a towel to wipe his forehead with. "Melt butter, zen put in zeh meat. Oven iz already hot, so don't worry about it. Ask for me when meat iz in oven." Working quickly, Sasuke shovels the vegetables into the pot and stirs it when he hears a soft curse and some grumbling in the gruff language the girls speak.

He sees Bruna with blood dripping from her hands and one of the girls running to her with a first aid kit while Issen looks over the scene unbiasedly. With short quick motions Issen finishes Bruna's job and then turns sharply to him, fixing him to he spot. "Do you have zeh veggies in zeh pot?" She asks, and he nods somewhat weakly, turning back to the butter in the large pan before him, when she comes on the side of him with the tray of marinated beef. "Put beef in zeh pan, zen I can show what you do next." He follows her instructions, and when he turns for the next words he notices that the other girls are staring blankly at him. Issen taps him with the knife to get his attention, "Set zos veggies in zat pot to side; vill not be good for a day. Jou see zis sauce?" She asks, and points to the marinade, stirring it about. "Get strainer, it above jour head. Ve vill use dis as sauce, get new pot." He quickly reaches up and gets them both, and she shows him how to pour the marinade into the new pot so the vegetables stay in the strainer. "Turn meat," she orders, and smacks him with a pair of tongs that he takes to do the job. After the beef is done she gives him the vegetables from the strainer and he adds them to the roasting pot where the beef is, "Take this," she says, and hands him a bowl of something that smells so strongly of tomatoes that it makes Sasuke's stomach growl loudly. At that Issen pauses and smirks, "Don't eat yet. I vill make some for jou for lunch." The girls are all smiling, and they return to what they're doing. Powlo later tells him, "She must really see something in you, because otherwise _you_ would have ended up in that oven."

On Sasuke's third day there, Powlo hands him an especially heavy box and asks suddenly, "So how did someone like you end up in a place like this?" Sasuke shrugs, but says, "How did someone like you end up as a cook, especially with that much chakra control?" He gets a smirk as a reward for his careful reply, but Powlo isn't done yet, and the women in the kitchen are listening intently, though they pretend not to, and strangely enough, so is Issen. Unperturbed, Powlo supplies, "When the treaty went through, my country stopped fighting with the land of Fire, and we all came here because of our government. They sent a couple of families from each of the treaty villages as alms, but because we fight differently there than how you do here I couldn't work as a ninja. I don't have that much chakra to begin with…" Sasuke nods and wants to let the subject drop, but the women are looking expectantly, as if the conversation were an exchange. After a terse, short silence, Powlo asks a simple, "And you? What about you?" Sasuke caves because it's something of a challenge and replies, "I threw up on my boss' shoes."

*&*

After work, Sasuke and Powlo train relentlessly; Sasuke learns how to safely extend his chakra from his body, and he teaches Powlo things that any genin should know. "It's just the basics," Powlo supplies, "but it should allow you to extend the reach of your sword by a couple of meters." Sasuke sighs and leans back on the rooftop, exhausted, but Powlo's practicing meditation, and is looking intensely at Sasuke.

"Everyone in this country is so uncontrolled," he murmurs thoughtfully into the night air, "from the moment I came here, I noticed that everyone's chakra just rolled off of them in waves. You all have so much of it, it makes me jealous." Sasuke smirks and leans his head to the side, looking at Powlo again, "You've seen our Hokage, right?" With a wistful sigh, Powlo whispers, "He's the one I'm most jealous of. He burns bright like a lighthouse! But what I like most about him is how much honor he has." Sasuke raises an eyebrow, Naruto's the last person he ever would have thought of having honor. The questioning look Sasuke gives Powlo says it all, and he clarifies, "He's reliable, he always fulfills his promises. That's what I think honor is, don't you?"

It's well past midnight now, and as Sasuke shuffles back to Hokage tower in a weary daze, he wonders about what Powlo said. The phrase burns in his mind as he opens the door and even as he shucks off his shoes. Finally looking up, he notices Naruto on the couch, watching a movie. He lazily looks over the chair back at Sasuke from the couch, and drawls, "Iruka-sensei brought dinner--it's on the counter if you want some." Sparing him only a moment's glance, Sasuke takes up some food then joins Naruto on the couch, curious to why Naruto was watching a movie instead of working as usual.

Sasuke throws his feet onto Naruto's lap, hoping for a response that will make it easier to get the idiot out of his lazy mood, but Naruto's head just drops, and with a soft clatter the remote falls onto the floor. With a look of surprise, Sasuke sets his food on the ground beside him and slips his feet to the other side of his body, attempting to shake Naruto awake. "Hey, hey…" he breathes into Naruto's ear, and the younger man hovers between consciousness for a while, then leans forward, pressing his face into his hands to rub the sleep out of his eyes. Frowning, Naruto mutters, "I never figured it'd be this hard, you know." Silent, Sasuke hands Naruto the remote and sits back, letting Naruto's weariness pander out. "Can you handle it?" Sasuke asks casually.

"Maybe…" Naruto says doubtfully, and Sasuke has to fight the urge to gape; Naruto, doubting himself? His questioning glance goes unnoticed, but Naruto continues, "I just need some help, you know?" Naruto murmurs, "I've been handling everyone else's burdens, and now when it comes time for my own… Ugh. I'm just so spent, Sasuke. I didn't think that I'd run out of energy—like ever. Being Hokage has been my dream for so long, and it's everything I wanted and more, but it's so hard trying to balance everything, especially when it's peaceful. 'Cause ninjas can't just keep doing groundwork, you know. We get antsy, and then there's bloodshed because everyone's stepping on eggshells…"

Naruto suddenly turns up the volume on the movie and Sasuke looks away, because the characters are speaking that foreign language that the girls speak, and Sasuke needs to learn it. His Sharingan flares during a particularly poignant part and Sasuke, while not understanding a single word of it, tries his best to pick it up.

As another plus, he doesn't have to focus on Naruto's hollow stare or the hands that clutch desperately at his own arms, clenching and unclenching in tremulous rhythm. Absentmindedly, Sasuke wonders why it's so much harder for Naruto than for the other kages. _'He has so much energy'_, Sasuke asides, _'it shouldn't be that much of a burden.' _He spares Naruto another look, and wonders if Naruto's got a lot more on his plate than just being Hokage. Curious, he throws Naruto a conversational bone, trying to get him to come out, "Everybody's got troubles and sins, Uzumaki."

With a curt nod Naruto clenches his hands again, with a soft murmur "I have so much to atone for Sasuke… and it's not even all mine." Sasuke's eyes whip to Naruto, searching, but blue eyes are closed in resignation and sleep and it's all Sasuke can do not to curse. Vulnerable Uzumaki is rare, and he just missed his chance to get some answers.

____________________________________________________________________

If anyone wanted to know what Issen was helping Sasuke make, it's called Sauerbraten, and boy, is it yummy! Hey, if you can guess correctly the real name of the food Coora was sharing with Sasuke in the previous chapter, then I could certainly write you a one-shot (smut excepting). It's a really good food too!

Ah, these chapters are getting so long, there's so much they need to do before they go…

One last thing: If you didn't get to see this in the last chapter, then here's a little explanation for my take on the NarutoVerse (Thanks eX, I really should have said something about this earlier…)

**Just where the Heck those tribal people came from**: I figure that since the Naruto world is an actual world, there's another side to it, hopefully not just one flat map. I'm also sort of abusing the Naruto movies and making them adjust to my own ideas. For instance, in The Stone of Gelel, there was Temujin _(who is so obviously not Asian it hurts—knight in shining armor ow, ow!)_, and gypsies _(Yay Gypsies!)_. Besides, if that was all there was to the Naruto world, a black Raikage just wouldn't be possible and Naruto's hair would probably be black.  
Hmm, on that train of thought, so would Gaara's...

But yeah, I'm taking a few liberties with the Naruto globe. It'd be impossible to write this story otherwise. Those folks from this chapter came from the other side of the sea, on most Naruto maps this would be the West of the land of Fire. They got introduced to the ninja world when their leaders decided that it would be a great idea to take it over _(Manifest Destiny HOORAY!)_ But then they met their match with Naruto.

Review, review, review, and I'll love you, you, you!


	7. Chapter 7

A.N. & Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto these next two chapters would be animated and you would be watching them at home with all the pretty colors. 'Pologize for the lateness, but I don't apologize for the much better quality than the first few drafts. I'm glad you didn't have to read those.

Revamp Chapter 7

*&* = Scene change

~&~= Flashback/ Mindscape/ Dreamscape

~*~= Scene change in a Flashback/ Mindscape/ Dreamscape

To say the War changed things was an understatement.

The war burned bridges, stole friends, killed children, and made murderers look innocent. It reformed Sound from a group of misfits who had stumbled across a plot of free land to an actual ninja village, tore everyone away from their personal and internal conflicts (excepting Sand, whose instigators decided that this would be the best moment to stage a coup), and finally, stopped Uchiha Sasuke in his tracks.

Madara's defeat was an impossibly harsh blow to Sasuke and team Hawk; they had been sent spiraling back into the hands of Sound in order to escape Naruto. Sound granted them diplomatic immunity from the seventh hokage and the insatiable Uzumaki Naruto by making Sasuke a captain during the war. Sasuke had taken up the mantle completely, even when the war took a turn for the worse and they began having to work with Leaf.

"Working with the leaf is a small price to pay," he explained to the new Otokage, a short, stout man who knew Sasuke's capabilities, "Instead of ending up someone else's slave."

The war made bridges made of stone, new allies, brought new birth, and tainted innocent men. It also forced the now legendary warriors Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto to work together. The duo who had once been banned from Bird Country because of their earth-shattering battles were now forced to march their soldiers together and have civil conversation.

If only vicariously.

_~&~_

_Karin swallowed nervously, and relayed a message from Sasuke to a stoic Captain Naruto, who leaned over a wounded ninja, tending to a gaping chest wound. He seemed to have only a fraction of his attention on her, most of his concentration going to move hundreds of small glass shards out of the lungs of an unlucky Chuunin, who had gotten the backlash of an enemy attack. Sweat poured down his forehead as his body quaked with stress, and Karin wondered how many clones he had on the battlefield._

"…_Commander Sasuke said that the Seventeenth Regiment will be going to make the next attack on the Village Hidden in the Cliffs this evening, and that your troops are still holding up. Sakura's ANBU regiment is still doing fairly well, but they've lost a few. Their names are—"_

"_No names. What else?" Naruto suddenly spoke, his voice gravel from yelling commands and insomnia. Karin started at his voice, suddenly wordless. With a tremble, he leaned back and closed up his patient, wiping the blood on his hands on his chunin vest, cleaned the soldier's chest with a small towel. Moving to a small area in the back of the tent, beaconing Karin to follow, he made his way to a part of cleared ground, covered with papers, scrolls, and files to begin fishing through them, his back turned to her._

"_What about Sai? How is his regiment doing?"_

"_His troops are well, but he's, ah… one of…" she trailed, unable to continue. Naruto got the message, and locking his jaw nodded curtly, crushing a scroll in his hand. Behind him, Karin stiffened and wondered if she should leave. He schooled his expression, and turned back to her after taking out another scroll. _

"_Tell Sasuke that I finally got some information out of those captives—the one's whose heads kept exploding whenever they got to talking. Here's the scroll with everything in it. If he needs me, tell him I'll be back, and to tell Captain Hinata. "_

_He handed her the scroll, and as she turned to bow and leave, he caught her shoulder. The heat of his hand permeated to her skin, and she looked into a set of gentle blue eyes._

"_And Karin…" he said softly, "My fight is with Sasuke. You don't have to ever be afraid of me."_

_~*~_

_Entering her Commander's tent, Karin found Sasuke crouched in the middle of the floor over an extensive map, displaying battles, camps, and bunkers. Leaning his head on one knee, Sasuke passed a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face. His right hand was stained with ink, and it left a dark trail on his forehead and the white cloth of the sling that held his broken left arm. Blearily, he looked up at Karin in half-recognition until she held up the scroll Naruto had sent her back with. He held out his hand, leaving black fingerprints, his eyebrows rose as he looked at the scroll._

"_Naruto said that he got the prisoners from Snow to talk and everything that he got is in there."_

_Sasuke nodded and kept looking at the scroll, nearly wide-eyed, and made a couple of furious marks on the map._

"_This changes everything. Tell Naruto that I'll take the West Shore if he'll…" Sasuke froze mid-sentence and looked at Karin, standing to face her._

"_Naruto didn't happen to leave after he gave you the scroll—did he?"_

_Karin nodded, and Sasuke cursed bitterly. "That idiot—his clones can't cover all of Water Country and O'uzu when he's in Konoha! It'll—"_

_Sasuke suddenly stopped talking and swore again. _

"_It will kill him…" _

_With this news, Sasuke moves out immediately with two of his regiments (Sugietsu and Juugo's), informs Shikamaru of the change, and whips out of his war tent with hardly a head-nod to Karin, who watches in silence as Sasuke ties on his sword._

"_Where should I tell them—" She starts, but Sasuke interrupts her, walking determinedly out of the camp._

"_To lightning—and Karin, tell Kakas—," he paused and frowned, "the Shichidaime I put you in charge."_

_It's only two hours later when Karin gets the news that Sasuke has suffered a mortal wound to the chest fighting alongside Naruto's clones. The news is like a blow—Karin finds herself wandering around the war camps like a lost soul, delivering information and instructions but never registering any of it. Her heart hurts, but she stays strong until she receives news that Naruto Uzumaki has died in battle. The cause, she's told, is from using too much of the Kyuubi's chakra to save the two regiments of Oto nin who came to help him._

_Heavy tears fall from her eyes even as she's told that their sacrifice has won the war. She curls up around herself in order to stem the pain in front of a bonfire and waits for the rest of the casualty count. 'There's no reason', she tells herself, 'there's no reason at all for you to cry for Commander Uzumaki. Who was he to you?'_

_The tears come anyway, and as she looks at a list of faceless ninja from every known village, she realizes why she cried. 'He was real to me,' she recognizes, 'He made himself real to me and every ninja in existence… Through all those wars, fights, and mayhem, he stayed true. Even through all his fights with Sasuke—'she chokes at the thought of Sasuke dead, but continues, 'he never stopped being true to everyone…'_

_Biting her lip and standing tall, Karin got back to work, when lo and behold…_

_With a mighty crash, the gates that guard the camp broke through with a strike of lightning and wind as Karin was hit with a warm body covered in blood and gore. As she prepared her assault, she paused to see that all the troops around her were not prepared to strike, but were cheering—dancing even._

'_What is going on?' She wondered as she took the time to look at the body that was thrown against her, who was now rebounding in earnest to attack._

"_Sasuke! You're alive! You're back!" She nearly squealed with delight as he got up, wanting to take him back in her arms and hold him for an eternity, when she saw a shock of blonde hair through the hole in the gate._

"_He better be, for all the crap he put me through! I still have to kill 'im!" Naruto yelled—still covered in blood and injuries—as he gave Sasuke a fiery look. Sasuke returned the look with extra venom, and wiped a swath of blood out of his eyes._

"_Not if I kill you first, Dead Last." He growled._

_~&~_

Looking at his hands in mute shock and horror, Naruto looked away from the sleeping body on the couch. Just minutes ago, he had found himself perched over Sasuke's sleeping form, one hand made to strike with three glowing blue chakra claws. In his terror he had jumped from the couch, retracting his claws in one swift move and whipping on his coat to leave, but now…

He looked at Sasuke in concern, tapping his lower lip with his index finger impatiently and nodding to himself.

'He's not really that great a ninja,' Naruto thought, 'I told her that he wasn't ready…'

Frowning, Naruto left the room through the window, leaping across rooftops in the evening air until he came to a tree that spiraled high above the other houses. On one of the branches sat Issen, who looked at him expectantly, and stood to meet him.

"You can show your true form, Fate," he said to Issen, who raised an eyebrow in response, "we're the only ones here."

"I could say the same to you, Naruto." She replied, and he laughed.

"You know I can't do that yet. Stop teasing me!"

The woman be fore him sniffed in mocking but then transformed, her bones extending and lengthening to bring her to a height of seven feet, her hair changing from blonde to a deep blue, taking on an unnatural slimness. Bored, she regarded Naruto critically and leaned against a branch.

"I've stopped time again. It doesn't matter now." She said languorously, waving him off. "But that's not the issue, is it, Naruto?"

Naruto stared out at a bird whose motion was paused mid-flight, chewing his bottom lip.

"He's not ready. Not even close." Naruto murmured. "I can't take him with me. I told you that months ago but you—you—I almost offed him again tonight!"

"Again?" Fate asked, quirking an elegant eyebrow. Naruto slammed his hand into the trunk of the tree trunk, bark flinging out to freeze in the air.

"He'll die if I let him come with me. I can't do that."

"Sacrifices need to be made, Naruto."

"I know, but isn't my life enough!" He groaned, shaking his head in misery and leaning on the tree until a cool, thin hand pressed comfortingly on his neck.

"If you do not take him, then there will be no way for both you and Kakashi to unlock the remaining Dragon Stones, remember? Kakashi and his partner could manage, but Naruto, it takes Uchiha blood…"

Naruto looked up at her, his eyes cold, and she continued as she caressed his cheek, "You, Naruto, are the only one who can save us, but you cannot do this alone." Looking down in frustration, he tried to turn away, but she cupped her other hand to his face.

"Here, I'll make you a guarantee," She said, and took a scroll out from behind her back. Naruto smirked as it materialized as she handed it to him.

"Have Sasuke take the ANBU exam—"

"What?" Naruto howled, spitting with shock.

"Have Sasuke take the ANBU exam—just trust me on this—and if he passes, then he goes with you. If he doesn't, then you'll know he can't even come close to handling this mission. Believe it!"

Smirking, Naruto nodded, and said, "I believe it!"

*&*

Almost losing his grip on his chopsticks, Sasuke tried not to choke on the piece of teriyaki chicken in his throat.

"Come again?" Sasuke said in disbelief, looking at the Hachidaime with raised eyebrows.

Naruto chuckled and said slowly, "You will be taking the ANBU exam. This round starts today."

"The ANBU exam."

"Yes."

"And you're serious?"

"As Sarutobi's grave."

Sasuke set his chopsticks down on the table and pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh.

"Naruto, why…" Sasuke trailed off and waved his hand, unable to finish.

"Because unlike Sakura," Naruto said as he threw a scroll to a clone, which began reading on the kitchen counter, "the Council needs another reason to let you even near me. The war may have softened them up to the idea of you, but it still doesn't change the fact that you're a missing nin to Leaf."

"How is the ANBU exam supposed to determine whether I'm loyal to Konoha or not?"

Naruto shrugged, and tilted his head. "Don't ask me, ask them. All I know is that I'm excited to watch you fail it."

Frowning, Sasuke threw a chopstick at Naruto, who easily dodged it, even as it punctured the wall. His scowl deepened as he realized that the wooden stick missed its mark, and turned his head away petulantly.

"You're kidding, right? I'm an S-Class ninja. I could pass any exam they gave me blindfolded—won't this take too long, anyway? It's only a week before we leave."

At that Naruto chuckled and took a scroll out from a stack of papers under his arm, tossing it to Sasuke.

"The exam is only a couple of days long, but it's tougher than when Itachi took it by far. Iruka and Ibiki ratcheted up the pressure once ROOT was flushed out to make sure that we were getting only the best soldiers."

"ROOT?" Sasuke queried as he opened the scroll, still looking at Naruto from his seat. The Hokage set his reams of paper on the kitchen table and started to prepare a cup of ramen as he answered, four more clones appearing to make headway on some stacks of paper.

"Yeah, Danzo's personal private force; it was pretty messy when we flushed them out. Never mind that, though--it's a good thing you can do that exam blindfolded."

"Wait, what?" Sasuke paused in looking at the scroll. Naruto did so too once he saw Sasuke's expression.

"You said you could do it blindfolded, right?"

"Yeah, what of it?"

"Oh. So you really don't know, do you?" Naruto said, a smile quickly stretching across his face.

"Know what?" Sasuke asked, wary.

"Iruka wanted to make sure that everyone they let in would be able to function without Kekkei Genkai. They'll probably seal your eyes closed—temporarily of course."

"Then how in the—" Sasuke started, his voice a growl.

"You can use your full Raiton to make up for it, and give ya some extra chakra for a boost. You won't be able to summon your hawks for a while—especially not with my chakra—but you guys don't seem to be getting along that well anyway…"

Sasuke scowled at the reminder of his last hawk summoning; it had gone disastrously with Naruto's chakra, to the point where the hawks had barely recognized him as the one who signed the contract. Growling, he brusquely shouldered his way out of the kitchen, snarling at Naruto's smug smirk.

Looking at the scroll, the summons for his examination, Sasuke felt his stomach drop somewhere to somewhere in his ankles. The test began this evening, and once he reported to the ANBU office that night, he'd be subjected to some of the most rigorous tests ever created. It also said that he'd have a partner. Sasuke could not decide whether that was good or bad until he saw the name of his partner: Coora Gebhuza.

He smirked as he read the rest of the document.

*&*

"Ready?" Coora spoke as she pulled tight the straps to Sasuke's weights, adjusting to make her own weights sit better on her back. Eyes sealed closed, Sasuke nodded and clasped the carefully measured weights around his hands as they sealed themselves to his skin under his testing outfit—regulation ANBU wear, sans the mask. Leading, her hand found his shoulder as the proctor gave the sign for the applicants to meet in the middle of a large seal, centered in the middle of the bare, dark admittance room. A small, slim ANBU waited in the center of the room, and spoke when all the exam takers filed into the ring.

"The rules are simple. You will have 72 hours to finish this examination," she explained quietly, "At the end of each segment, meet at the seal at the end of the area. Don't die and don't let your partner die."

Sasuke felt a surge of chakra as the seal under their feet glowed and gave way, letting the examinees fall into a deep void. Wind rushed past his ears and stung his face as pressure suddenly closed in on his body, pushing the air out of his lungs. A resounding shriek arrested his heart in his chest as some of the other applicants tossed obscenities into the air. He heard a flap and the quickly quieting voice of the proctor.

"Part one! You have five minutes! Good luck!"

"Holy shi—" He howled. "Just how far up are we?!?"

A pair of hands accosted his arms, clamping on, hearing Coora's voice.

"Mountain range! Above clouds!"

Cursing bitterly, Sasuke grabbed onto Coora, partly wishing he had his curse seal back. His air was running out from the altitude and they needed a plan, or they'd be red smears soon. Thinking quickly, he yelled back to Coora.

"Is there snow?"

"Yeah, on the rocks!"

So straight snow was out—if they fell there they'd be ninja paste. He shook his head, concentrating.

"Trees?"

"No trees!"

"Buildings?"

"No!"

Screwed again. They were toast unless Coora had something.

"Boom!" He heard her yell in his ear, and he cringed.

"I know!"

"No! I make one!"

"What?!?"

Suddenly, Sasuke felt himself wrenched to one side as the wind hit him in the face; her arms leaving his to wrap around his waist, along with her legs as she braced his back. Her chakra surged through her palms to the ground below and he heard a resounding crack, then a multitude of crumbling noises as their decent slowed. Ice crystals clung to his skin as they fell, and the cracking became louder and louder. She muttered something that sounded like a curse in his ear, then yelled to him.

"Not enough! Need more heat!"

"On it! Aim me!" He yelled, and she moved her hands to his forearms, just as he sent a bolt of lightning down to meet with the rocks below.

As the lightning struck the landmass below it billowed into a great ball of flame, suddenly melting small crystals of ice that had formed on Sasuke's face, and he felt Coora gasp in surprise. The world exploded in heat, sound, and pressure as they fell, and Sasuke felt Coora pull him to an almost standing position. Small flecks of rock and debris hit Sasuke in the face, and heat singed his skin, removing layers of cloth and flesh. The splitting and falling of permafrost, ice, and stone rendered him deaf as the pair tumbled down to the Earth. His feet touched solid ground, and Sasuke was sure that was it for them, when he realized…

…they were still falling.

Sasuke fell to his knees and clung to the rock, feeling Coora's weight lift off of him completely as her arms struggled to stay around his middle as the slab turned and swung in a wicked spiral. Suddenly, the rock crashed onto the mountain face, slamming them both down to the debris as the boulder slid down on the remaining slope. Snow rose like a wave around them as they continued to slide, swallowing them as the rock glided into a maze of trees, impacting with a towering set of fir trees, and jolting them off so that they tumbled down the mountain side separately.

As they dropped Sasuke attempted to land on his feet, but only met ice every time his feet touched the ground, finally pulling out his sword to stab it into the thick ice. He threw his arm out to a come to a sudden halt as he heard Coora nearly fall past him, just barely catching her on his outstretched arm.

Panting, they hung in silence for a moment, the sounds of their labored breathing filling the air, before Sasuke heard a soft crunch. Coora's hand was on the arm holding the sword, and she was releasing the blade from the frozen support.

"Coora, what are you--!"

His sword slid out of the ice, and he cursed as they plummeted again, flailing wildly to gain some kind of advantage, only to meet his fate…

Exactly on top of a snowdrift covered seal. Sasuke forced an exasperated sigh.

"Lucky, lucky—you had one minute left..." The test proctor chimed, and Sasuke had to fight not to put a kunai in her forehead.

*&*

Ragged breaths tore from Naruto as he braced himself against concrete walls, digging his hands into the hard rock to stifle his own pain. His blood was seeping from two seals; one on his stomach to hold the demon, the newest one over his heart, to stop the universe from crashing down on all his precious people.

Despite the pain and tiredness, Naruto is flush and ecstatic with success as he gazes out upon a dark, finished seal on a cement floor. He was thrilled as he looked out at his creation, the extravagant seal poured upon the dark stone floors and walls of a near prison cell.

"Yes…" he hissed as he let his body slide, allowing his head to rest on the wall to ease the pounding tension headache there. 'Stress from chakra exhaustion,' Sakura would say, noting his symptoms, but Sakura is not here now, in this secret place below the new Uchiha complex.

Fact: Sakura, after all of this time, thought he commissioned the rebuilding of the complex for Sasuke's return.

Fact: Naruto did not.

One more fact (the one that rendered Naruto absolutely blissful)—his seal worked. Naruto choked a desperate laugh and stood to leave, his muscles stiff, his clothes wet with blood-tainted water.

Naruto was not good at fuuninjutsu; seals and the study of them had always been hard, but desperation drove him to research. A power was to be unleashed on Konoha, planted there by someone quite like himself.

"_All I want is unity…"_ she had told him, and he had believed her while centuries had passed as Fate fixed time. He believed her even after she tried to consume him, rip him of his mind for the first time.

Up until she scattered the pieces of his heart in space and time so she could have them when the chance came again. Made some of them dangerous monsters so no one would touch them, others she made into irresistible pieces of power.

Up until she endangered his precious people.

The seal was meant to cover the village in the time of need; it had six points for perfect, balanced protection and required a ridiculous amount of chakra and a couple of liters of spilt blood from Naruto. The final piece was a place to put the seal—Sasuke's unplanned return solved that, and gave Naruto an extra excuse to be slinking around the place after dark. A flick of his chakra and dispelled clones inundated him with information; the meetings they covered for him, the bit of information about the barracks that he wanted to know, and the question that they took to Iruka (who figured out it was a clone unlike everyone else).

It used to be that Naruto would only visit Iruka in times of desperation; Kakashi had advised him that it would look silly for a Hokage to keep visiting his alma mater on a regular basis—a sign of weakness. However, the man, despite being crippled, had risen above and rebirthed himself when he discovered that he might not see his student again. After he finally made Jounin and was instated to redesign the ANBU exam, Naruto had to begin seeing him weekly to get the list of new ninja—but only when his clones were caught.

Lunching with Iruka, the sun hit Naruto's face and hair, warming him as the sun blazed in the noonday sky. The wind rustled Iruka's papers as they ate together, and flapped the covers of the books, stacked high for Iruka's reading pleasure (and to keep his wheelchair from moving) as they sat outside the center. They used to talk mindlessly, but ever since Naruto became Hokage there's been classified information, and he actually has to think more about what he says.

"Iru," Naruto called, half-lost in thought, "What would you do if I—ow!"

"Naruto," Iruka said, smacking his graduate with a book on taijutsu, "no hypothetical questions."

Naruto frowned as Iruka put the small book back on a pile of readings. Iruka's eyes locked onto Naruto's, with a dry, calculating stare as he took another mouthful of rice. The newest Hokage quickly caved under the intense glare, and punched out his question, casting his desperate gaze around, searching for a distraction.

"Would you be willing to help Sakura? I'm…" He mumbled into the air, rubbing his neck sheepishly-- flying by the seat of his pants, only aided by the air that blows into the academy windows.

In response, the Jounin blinked, and sat back from his mountains of paperwork, books, and scrolls.

"Naruto," he says condescendingly, "If it was just that you know you could have asked a long time ago. What's up?"

A look that Iruka recognizes rips its way onto Naruto's face, reeking of so many thoughts that Iruka cannot make them all out. His once-young student now looks like a haunted man, and Iruka realizes that he's seen this before, from Naruto's second mission as ANBU, when he fell against Iruka's door somewhere around midnight, soaked with blood and rain.

'_A baby, Iruka-sensei—a baby!' He had choked, on his knees, with an incomprehensible knot in his throat._

So when Naruto's face clears back to a smile, Iruka is immediately suspicious.

"Eh, it's nothin' Iruka-sensei." He chimed, cocking his head to the side, a stupid grin on his face.

*&*

Slogging through a swamp in pouring rain, Coora and Sasuke slowly made their way to the next seal. Roots and mud caught on Sasuke's sandals as Coora lead him through the maze of vines, but the trees the roots came from, however, were nowhere to be found, as evidenced by their obvious lack of stealth. A lofty canopy of interlocking vines blocked any sunlight from above and stifled any air movement, leaving Coora almost as blind as her counterpart and making the slow going almost nonexistent.

They had two hours.

"Not to see," Coora panted through their sluggish movements after the first hour, "is hard for you, no?"

Sasuke managed a sardonic sniff as he tried to feel her movements; their wrists and ankles were connected with torn strips of cloth which easily came untied because of the stifling heat, sweat, and water. Somewhere during the first thirty minutes of the test they had realized just how awkward it was for Sasuke to simply hang his lanky frame over hers, making it hard to avoid the numerous traps in the water.

"No… My Kekkei Genkai—" he paused and thought for a moment, "My _ability_ should have blinded me a long time ago."

He felt the subtle movement of her head nod before she spoke, almost a whisper, "My _ability_, it will bind me in short time."

"Bind you?" Sasuke asked, nearly tripping over another vine as she brought her foot up quickly.

"I… I will lack…" She began, struggling with the words, "I will not move."

Sasuke bit his lip in comprehension; he had always thought that the degeneration of his own bloodline was bad, but to be _paralyzed_…

"Challengers…" Coora whispered, halting her step, and holding out her arms to stop Sasuke's movement. His mouth quirked up into a smile as she pressed a fist into his hand—their signal for more than ten enemy ninja nearby.

"On it," Sasuke sneered, and lifted Coora into the air with one hand, plunging the other down into the water.

"Lightning style; Current Runners!" He whispered as snakes of his electric blue lighting spread across the water.

*&*

It was a fine day, Kakashi thought, to come back to town. Ino was guarding the gates, and she was predisposed to letting him by without checking him _("For saving my father during that battle," she had said when he had asked, "I can spare you a little trouble."_). He and his comrade would easily get through; even if she did make trouble, it would be no problem to simply make her forget.

Speaking of whom…

Kakashi's company has been silent for the last couple of miles, worrying him a bit. It took several months to pull his companion out of his introspective shell upon meeting him, and every time that he would speak was a private victory for Kakashi. Turning to his disguised escort as they walked, the Copy Ninja tried to prod him to speech.

"Are you hesitating now?" He said playfully. "One would think you had the opportunity to do that earlier."

His question was met with silence, and Kakashi frowned under his mask as they neared the village. Out of irritation, his hands twitched at the book in his vest pocket, and he saw his fellow ninja's eyes flash. He had been trying to break Kakashi of his pornography habit, doing so by stealing and occasionally burning his many, many books. Kakashi still had not fully forgiven him that trespass.

"Fate tells me Naruto does not want my little brother to accompany him," said the ninja, watching Kakashi's hand halt and slip back into his pant pocket.

"With good reason, I suppose?" Kakashi replied, baiting conversation.

"It's dangerous for Naruto to go without him. He insists though, that it is much more dangerous for Sasuke."

"Is it?"

"I… I am not sure. I would assent to Sasuke not going if it were anyone else but Naruto. Fate insists however, and I'm sure that she will find a way to bring Sasuke to Konoha well before Naruto leaves."

"Hmm… I wonder how…"

At the gate, Ino straightened to attention when they neared her table, waving Kakashi over. Quizzically, he turned his head to the side as she opened her hand for his papers, motioning to his partner for the same reason.

"What's up, Yamanaka? Something happen while I was gone?"

"Oh, you have no idea! Now Sakura's really getting on to us about checks, and I have the absolute worst time remembering your passport number. Oh! Hey, who's this?" She paused, looking Kakashi's partner up and down as she finished processing Kakashi's passport. She stood and put her hand out to shake his, but he looked somewhat unsure, even as he held his hand out.

"Hey! Old Man Kakashi!" A voice called, even as its owner walked up and intercepted the handshake.

"Yo, Naruto," Kakashi greeted, as Naruto wrapped an arm around his shoulder, Kakashi jerking a thumb towards the desk, "New security checks?"

Fanning his hand towards Ino (who looked slightly offended), Naruto barked a laugh. "Yeah, Sakura's gotten all paranoid since—wait, you don't know?"

"Something happen?" Kakashi queried again.

"Mm-hmm," Naruto murmured in ascension, escorting Kakashi and his companion away from Ino, "Man, lemme tell ya…"


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Yeah, and I'm the King of Atlantis. I'm sure I wouldn't even have time for this if I was Masashi Kishimoto.

*&* = Scene change

~&~ or _Italics_= Flashback/ Mindscape/ Dreamscape

~*~= Scene change in a Flashback

Lord Hokage's Dog: Chapter 8

The days of the ANBU exam blur together in Sasuke's mind, so when the test is finally over he's still trying save strength for the next part—even though it's a simple physical exam.

'The fourth day…' he thinks with a sigh as his tired eyes take in the scene around him, 'we won't be finished before it's time to go.'

He and Coora are some of the few remaining examinees; the rest have fallen away due to exhaustion, death, and simple forfeit. Despite their strength, he and Coora are barely standing from the exercises, which tested their intelligence, teamwork, and abilities. Granted, their test was a bit harder than everyone else's; the chakra weights that everyone else put on the beginning of the test were never activated. He and Coora had their chakra continuously sucked out of them by the weights, which steadily became heavier as they pulled more energy. This last bit is not a part of the test, but all the same it's a trial to keep standing, to not slump under the blinding white lights of the physical examination, to not press oneself against the cold room walls.

Several proctors move about the room, checking the participants' vital signs, identifying marks, neural pathways, chakra pathways, on and on and on…

He's got his eyes trained on Coora, which helps for some weird reason, because she is a constant spot in a room that constantly spins, keeps him from giving into the ebb and flow. One of her fingers looks different than before; her lax stance lets him see the silver encased digit, which doesn't move as smoothly as the others. Sasuke wonders when that happened, because her hands looked completely normal before the exam.

Her heel taps against the floor even as she stands at attention to let the proctor put a light up her nose. Speaking of which, the proctor behind Sasuke is straightening his back, putting an ice cold hand between his shoulder blades and begins pushing in chakra.

The effect is immediate.

All the examinees are suddenly shocked awake with a sound crack, and Sasuke's examiner is trying to pull his body out of a crater in the adjacent wall with the aid of a few other practitioners, giving Sasuke a wide-eyed look behind his white ox mask. The others pull him to his feet, while a female in a raccoon mask curtly beacons Sasuke to follow her, leading him to a space on the floor where the chakra weights lie, crackling with power on a spread white sheet.

"That procedure is usually used to measure how much chakra your body can hold", she says condescendingly, simplifying the medical terminology for him, "If you think of your body as a glass and your chakra as syrup, the procedure is like dropping a straw straight down in the liquid. It goes straight through, usually, and with a little effort, you can pull it out."

Stooping to pick up a set of the weights, with no little effort, she placed them on his arm and released the seal, chakra flooding back into Sasuke's system as he gazed at her, somewhat annoyed. However, when she attempted to remove the weights they crumbled into powder. The proctor backed away warily.

"Your system displays symptoms of extreme chakra deprivation, but the amount of chakra that that you display says the exact opposite—chakra excess. To say the least, it's very concerning. Your chakra system—"A loud bang issued from a pair of steel doors opening, and the ANBU turned from him to look at the imposing figure there.

With a twist of his hand, Iruka steered his wheelchair towards Sasuke, his face hardened and curt. Sasuke's sword was hung around the back of the wheelchair, and Iruka's blanket looked haphazard, displaying a pocketed pant leg with an atrophied limb underneath.

"It's time for Sasuke to go," he spoke with a nod, "Gebhuza too" he said to the proctor, but his eyes never left the youth in front of him. The ANBU proctor shook her head, "He has a medical condition. I'm sorry; Umino, but I can't release him."

Iruka reached into a pants pocket under his wheelchair blanket, pulling out a scroll to hand to her. She opened it and read aloud in shock, "An evacuation, Umino? Isn't this a bit sudden?"

Iruka shook his head and pointed to the doors, "Orders of the Hokage, I'm sure you understand. Top secret, but everything is going according to plan."

She spared him a hard look, but turned to the rest of the group, nodding. They filed the rest of the applicants out of the room, Coora sparing him a look of confusion as they scooted the rest of the students out the door, but followed the group as they left Sasuke and her alone with a steely Iruka.

Reaching around his shoulder, Iruka handed Sasuke his sword, and shook his head, looking somewhat befuddled. He handed Coora a belt with several pockets, and she nodded in calm acceptance.

"You're leaving with Naruto today, I hope you're ready." The instructor said to Sasuke, adjusting the cloth on his legs again. Sasuke looked at him incredulously.

"I'm not. Uzumaki didn't tell me where we're going." Iruka frowned at Sasuke's response, but nodded comprehendingly, wheeling himself to another set of doors. Behind him Coora stretched languidly, gaining her strength back from a soldier pill she popped into her mouth; as if she had been expecting the odd occasion. Sasuke looked at her curiously.

"You two follow me; I'm going to tell you the basics as we go. For everything else, ask Naruto—although, if he'll tell you, I'm not sure." Iruka said, pushing a door open with a burst of chakra from his palm. "The basics, though, should confuse you enough."

Suddenly, Iruka froze as a body stopped the progress of his chair. In the corridor stood two figures, one of which looked sleepily at the three ninja; Iruka's eyebrows raised in surprise at the newcomers.

"Kakashi…" he said with a befuddled look, which quickly became a look of reserved question.

"Actually, my friend here would be glad to escort them to the Hokage, and Iruka, you can come with me. But…"

"It's recommended," Kakashi finished cryptically, "That you ask no questions."

*&*

"What's going on here?" Sakura yelled, slamming her hand down on Naruto's desk, cracking it in two. As the splinters flew up into her face, she whipped a hand clenched around a scroll to an open window, motioning to the hundreds of people migrating into the city streets.

"First Sasuke comes back with a full pardon, and you tell us that he and team Hawk are _supposedly_ working for you, then you pull an evacuation to the _Uchiha compound_?!" She howled, sending flecks of spittle into his face. Groaning, she grabbed her hair, pulling at it dramatically until she sighed and let her arms drop.

"Naruto, what's with all this underhanded business? Can't you just tell me what you're doing?" She choked, "What's going on, Naruto? What's happening? Why are we being evacuated?"

Standing, Naruto smiled sadly at Sakura, and walked over to her, catching her in a bear hug. Catching his glassy stare and tight expression, she calmed herself, allowing him to hold her. Confused, she frowned slightly as he tucked his head under her chin and held her tight.

"Naruto?" She queried. "Naruto, what… what's wrong? What's happening?"

"S-Sakura… I'm gonna miss you so much… I'm sorry I… I—I lied. I'm sorry that I can't stay, but I gotta… I gotta do something really important, and I need you to trust me." He whispered, still holding her tightly.

He pulled away and she saw his bloodshot eyes. Naruto turned away, facing the broken desk and the sunlight from the windows touched his skin, but it suddenly turned a shade darker. Blonde hair grew longer; short, stout limbs took on inches in a matter of seconds, becoming whipcord thin and looking slightly starved. Sakura stared as he made his way back to her, taking in his weathered face and tired expression, her eyes dropping to stop on his chest.

Sakura sucked in a breath as she gazed at the spot right above his heart, and saw a ball of iridescent, glimmering crystal there. But the gem, fashioned to look like a real heart, was evidently broken, with a large, jagged edge ending the top.

"Can you trust me?" He spoke to Sakura, his voice a gravelly tenor as he held out his hand. "Can you trust me after I've—after I've broken my promise? After I've lied? Can you follow my instructions?"

Looking into his eyes, she shook her head and bit her bottom lip.

"That's not a jutsu, is it, Naruto?" She said, her voice falling flat; more statement than question. "I can't feel your chakra moving at all."

He shook his head and she closed her eyes with a frustrated sigh.

"Anything, Naruto; anything for you—just… Just tell me what you need me to do." She murmured loyally, one fist wrapped and shaking at her side.

"_Go, Sakura. Go now_." He said; his voice taking on another dimension, clogged with chakra and something else that weaved its way into Sakura's head, compelled her feet to move. Fighting the control, she struggled to keep her composure.

"What?" She looked around in shock, as her feet moved against her will, as her arms opened the door without her consent. "Naruto! What's going on? What is this?"

"_Make sure the villagers are safe, Sakura, make sure that they all get to the Uchiha compound and stay there until it's over_." His voice followed after her, still ringing with mysterious power.

"Until what's over? Naruto? Naruto! Answer me!"

"_I… I'm not coming back Sakura. Good—goodbye..._"

*&*

Hinata looked up at the evening sky, her face hard with worry. Neji stood behind her, one hand comfortingly on his shoulder as she stood on the roof of one of the Uchiha Compound's many houses. Down below, hundreds of villagers milled about, finding space in what was assumed to be a small compound.

It was not. Hundreds of hidden rooms and cabinets stocked with food and supplies had been found, costumed by thin layers of genjutsu.

And weapons—all sorts and sizes—were stocked up behind the walls of the new compound. Not old ones from the days of the Uchiha, either, no; new, sharpened, readied weapons, made personally to suit the style of each ninja within Konoha to bring out their strengths.

Sakura had closed the enormous gates of the compound with her massive strength. Once they had closed however, a transparent, glowing blue layer of chakra as thick as she was tall had spread across the entirety of the space, enveloping them. The crowd of villagers inside had erupted in cries of surprise and shock.

Their surprised calls quickly turned to frightened murmurs as the sky above the dome suddenly covered with dark scarlet clouds and a dense fog melted through the streets of the village outside. Ninjas covered the roofs of the Uchiha Complex, staring out into the purple-tainted fog, and genin to jounin searched the streets of Konoha with their eyes to no avail. Even Byakugan-enhanced eyes were limited against the thick, blinding menace.

Hinata looked to her right, her look of frustration softening to sadness as she looked to Sakura, whose jaw was clenched tighter than a trap even as her eyes watered threateningly. A young genin quietly made his way up to her and tugged gently on her arm.

"What!" Sakura snapped, whirling at the young man. He cowered in fear, raising his arms in defense until she calmed herself with a heated sigh.

"Sir Hatake is at the gate ma'am, I was t-told to inform you that he has Umino-sensei with him." Spoke the genin hurriedly.

"Iruka! I thought he was with the first wave of evacuees! Oh man! How are we supposed to let them in; the gates won't open back up no matter what we try."

"Th-th-that's just the thing ma'am; they're inside. Gai-sensei said that Hatake used some kind of seal--it's imprinted on his hand."

Hinata started at the chunnin's comment—if recent events spoke true, that meant that Kakashi may have an idea of what was going on.

And from the looks of it, Naruto might too.

Sakura looked up with an air of shock tinged with fear, then leaped off of the roof top. Sparing a glance to Neji, Hinata followed deftly, saying, "Tell the elders to meet me in the square in half an hour. If they doubt your authority, tell them that **_I_** sent you."

Sakura doubled her pace to the gates, and Hinata kept up without problem, skidding to a stop as Sakura recognized Kakashi's form standing behind Iruka's wheelchair. She at first looked relieved, but then her mouth twisted into a grimace of bared teeth.

"Kakashi," she bit through her scowl, "I _demand_ an explanation." Sakura hissed.

The casual jounin gave a shrug of his shoulders. Iruka's previous smile dropped away as he

looked nervously to Kakashi.

"What—" she stopped and pursed her lips, closing her eyes. Kakashi seized the moment.

"Ah, Sakura—or should I say, _Lady Hokage_? You know, you really ought to clear that up, especially since today is the day that Naruto's leaving after all…"

Hinata started, and Sakura looked stricken. Other villagers had gathered near the gates to see Kakashi, and they began to murmur to each other, and some bowed to her. They knew that Hatake would not lie about politics; it was not in his nature. Sakura looked down and clenched a fist, roiling with anger.

"They're not leaving," she growled, her head down, "not without me. Not this time."

For the first time in a long time Kakashi looked—and felt—especially nervous.

*&*

The streets of Konoha were a maze in the maroon fog as Sasuke, Coora, and their guide made their way to their destination; Hokage mountain. Between the three of them, their steps were silent on the shrouded gravel path to the top of the mountain. Sasuke's forehead furrowed as he looked at the stranger in front of them.

'_As much as I try_,' Sasuke thought, silently frustrated, '_it's as if I didn't have the Sharingan at all. I know he has a genjutsu covering his form, but I just can't break it. But just what is he trying to hide?_'

The outline of the stranger blurred against the dense fog as Sasuke focused his eyes, and the trio walked in silence until they reached a grove of trees, where Sasuke saw another outline.

'_Is that..._' his eyes widened with shock, '_is that Naruto_?'

It is. It is Naruto in the woods surrounded by a grove of silver-grey trees that twist around and shroud a small circular clearing with a rune-covered stone in the center. It is Naruto who bears this weathered, beaten, tired form. It is Naruto who looks back at him with an expression of mixed surprise and disappointment.

"So he passed." Naruto says neutrally to Coora and Sasuke's guide, who nods. Naruto frowns when his eyes lock on Coora.

"She had to cheat." He says, part of a frown pulling down his mouth.

"Fate?" Speaks their guide.

Naruto nods and looks back at the stone. Sasuke's all together shocked because everyone else in the clearing looks like they were expecting this situation, this Naruto, and all the rest of this madness.

"I can't make the clues any clearer. Her agent's searching here too."

The guide remains impassive as Naruto bites his right wrist so hard that blood trickles down his chin. Holding his hand over the stone, Naruto watches as the blood trickles onto the rock. With a hiss, the runes glow violet and streaks of light rise up to touch Naruto's hand and wrap around his arm, forming a clawed glove. Memories take Sasuke in little floods as Naruto leaves the clearing, and they follow, going further up the mountain.

_A flurry of blue-clawed strikes hits Sasuke as he tries to parry them with Kusanagi, whose blows fall like paper cuts on Naruto's skin. His sword can't block them as it passes ineffectively through the light blades that protrude from Naruto's fingers._

As they leave the clearing, the air in Sasuke's lungs catches in his throat as he looks up. The night sky has turned a murky red, swirling idly around a deep black hole that has appeared above Hokage Mountain, crackling dangerously with power.

"What…" a breath escapes from Sasuke's lips as confusion overtakes him. He looks to Naruto, who looks defiant as he stands atop the Fourth's head.

"Coora," calls Naruto, "you ready?"

Flashing a bright smile that reveals rows of white teeth, Coora nods and jumps to where Naruto is as the dark circle widens.

"She's almost here!" Naruto yells to the ground "I'll take her and her pet, but it'll be up to you two to protect the compound! The seal should hold, but make sure that none of them get in! Sasuke, you have full access; abilities and chakra!"

"Make sure who doesn't get in?" Sasuke asked his shepherd.

"Them." His guide said, pointing up to the sky. Sasuke looked to the black hole in the sky as he drew his sword, his mouth partly open in awe.

Issuing from the dark abyss above was the face of a giant wolf made of fire and bone, whose howl rocked the ground as it struggled to escape. Its eyes radiated with liquid fire as the hole grew and the rest of its mighty body breached the tunnel, the flames from its torso licking across the sky as one skeletal paw touched down, crushing a building under its weight.

Sparks from the creature flared off and became separate, smaller wolves whose howls echoed in Konoha's empty streets. They ran through the town, setting buildings aflame as they galloped through allies and archways.

"Oh." Sasuke said breathlessly, swallowing slightly, following the lead of his escort as he leaped towards the Uchiha compound. They slid to the ground with a stop once they encountered the domed Uchiha Compound upon which the wolves were quickly encroaching. Moving into an offensive stance, Sasuke poised his sword so the tip barely brushed the ground. His companion crouched into a taijutsu pose that Sasuke didn't recognize; with one leg slid out as the weight of his body rested on the other, his hands forming open handed fists.

"You're gonna touch those things?" Sasuke queried with an incredulous air.

He nodded slowly, eyes flickering to the wolves, which had slowed their pace. The wolves encroached hungrily, flame dripping from their jaws like spittle; falling to the ground like bursts of acid, turning the sand below to glass.

The air stilled but for the crackle of flames.

A howl echoed through the night, and all at once Sasuke saw wolves approach him from all directions. Hundreds of fangs and claws were upon him as he threw them back with strikes of his sword, scraping their bony bodies. Some howled as the sword made notches in their frames, others growled, snapping their teeth in fury as Sasuke whipped steel through the air, managing to keep them back from the building.

Snarling with frustration, Sasuke beat the fiends back with added fury, but with every chop of his sword the opponents came back; their efforts redoubled. The number of wolves grew and Sasuke was caught under a deluge of flame. His Sharingan flared, aiding him and reading their movements, but he was lost among the tumult as too many attacked with every swing of his blade.

"Sasuke!" He heard his name called through the roar of the flame and looked to his left, where his companion was making powder of the wolves with his bare hands. Sasuke tried not to stare in awe as a chakra covered palm came down on a wall of flame-shrouded canines, reducing them to fine ash.

"Use Naruto's chakra like you would your own! Quickly!" His marshal urged, "Drop the sword. It is of no use against these creatures."

Hesitating, Sasuke looked at his sword as he cut at another swath of wolves. One of the wolves, as it slid back from the blow, shot him a near sentient glare and growled low as the slice Sasuke had made with his sword slowly refilled. Gritting his teeth, Sasuke spat in disgust. He threw his sword to the side and charging his hands with his own chakra, closed his eyes.

*&*

_Sasuke stumbled into his mind; a plane of white and black squares that floated through the air whizzing to and fro. Through the colorless landscape he searched alone, his urgency making his travel hurried._

'_Where…? I know he's here somewhere…'_

'_Looking for me?' A voice murmurs behind him, and Sasuke whips around only to be caught in a pure blue gaze that erases the landscape around him, leaving him floating in dark blue sky._

'_Yes…' Sasuke hisses of a prize found. 'Please…'_

'_Always', the voice responded benevolently._

_*&*_

A surge of chakra coated Sasuke's palms, gleaming with the force of a Chidori in either hand, glowing with the color of wine, bursting in streaks of light through the red of his Sharingan. He looked up to see that his guide had covered him while he had gathered his forces.

"I trust you know what to do," he murmured calmly while crushing the heads of two wolves together, his sleeves alight with flame, but his skin surprisingly intact.

Sasuke took off, making powder of the many wolves around them both, his hands a blur of light.

*&*

Atop the head of the fourth, Naruto looked into the eyes of the burgundy wolf, who howled its displeasure in thunderous calls, shaking the ground beneath his feet. Taking a deep breath, Naruto shook his head as he looked out on Konoha, but rolled a kink out of his neck.

"I am ready." Said Coora. Naruto frowned in response.

"You sure? I mean, there's gotta be another way that doesn't involve you…" Naruto paused with unease, "dying…"

Biting her lip, Coora looked into the abyss above, as Konoha's buildings began to break apart and rise upwards. She nodded and smiled at him.

"New journey, Ancients say, begin here for me," Raising a hand to the sky longingly, she continued, "For I am tool of Ancients."

Naruto looked away, cursing himself for her acceptance, but he was out of time, and there were no more solutions. She placed a hand on his shoulder, and pointed to the sky.

"No time. We must."

Clenching his teeth, he balled a fist tight enough to draw blood. Suddenly he drew her close, hoisting her over his shoulder like a weapon and holding her up with a hand on her stomach. She locked her legs around his arm, and in a motion like an overhead clap, she pressed her hands together, pointing her fingertips at the wolf.

"I'm gonna charge my chakra through you. It'll hurt. A lot." He said as he aimed her at the rampaging fiery fiend.

"I know." She said, almost chuckling.

He wanted to close his eyes, or look away somehow, but instead, falling to one knee, he let a tidal wave of his chakra pour through her, and she screamed as her technique took over. A spike of gold metal erupted out of her fingertips, and grew as metal seeped through her skin, poured out of her body. From her feet up, thin bands of silver metal wrapped around her, melting in place as they grew. The metal at her fingertips grew into a rod of copper-gold material and shot out at the wolf like an arrow, piercing the beast in its chest.

An earth piercing howl shook the sky as the metal spear struck the wolf in its heart, exploding on contact into a shower of purple and gold sparks. On the ground, a thousand flaming creatures fell to their sides, yowling and writhing in pain as the flames on the buildings extinguished, the flame that held their bones together now gone. Red-white ash and violet flame gushed into the air in one final desperate gasp as the wolf met its end.

Sinking to both knees, Naruto gently laid Coora's body down and turned her so her back touched the ground, wavering in a mixture of sadness and awe. Coora's body was completely encased in silver, her expression frozen in a tear-stained prayer. Her thin platinum braids tapped lightly together in the swirling night air.

Looking up to the sky, Naruto seethed as a licks of chakra flickered around his body. Long chakra blades emerged from his fingertips as he stood, scraping the ground.

"C'mon!" He challenged to the sky, "I know you're watching! Your precious pet just died by my hand! Now come where I can see you!"

A stream of lavender light and a haymaker later, Naruto found who he was looking for from his spot in the dirt.

_Her._

Taking her in, he sees that her form for his world is different; lavender and ebony flames that wrap around the form of a voluptuous woman, her hair a black flare that moves like the tendrils of a bonfire, ashen grey skin, and eyes that are a singular burst of black, dead chakra.

"I'm right here, Naruto, and I've come to put you in your place." She growled, her fist still wrapped tight from the punch, shaking with anger.

Drawing himself up, he looked her in the eye and spat, drawing upon an unnatural calm.

"How dare you? How dare you turn against me after all I've given you?" She shrieked, whipping a hand out at him as it flickered with dark black flame.

Dragging the tip of his chakra blade against the ground, Naruto bared his teeth as a set of violet fangs protruded from his gums.

"If you open the gates to hell," he snarled, "Don't expect angels to come out."

The sky burst into deep black as trees and rock were greedily eaten up by the force of the vortex.

She lunged for his heart.

*&*

It took all of Sasuke's strength to cling to the ground; he closed his eyes, his arms shoulder deep in the ground as he clung for his life against the pull of the whirlpool beyond. The wind scraped against his skin and clothes, leaving streaks of red as the fog and the village disappeared. Light poles flew by, along with chunks of apartments and houses, and Sasuke ducked his head low as a mailbox flew past his head, but was not as lucky when a tree flew towards him at top speed.

Pressing his head to his chest, he waited for the impact, but a mighty jerk tugged him out of the way. He clambered for something to hold onto, when he realized that there was a strong arm pulling him in. It was his companion, hauling him in like the catch of the day, one arm carelessly wrapped around an exposed water main.

Sasuke looks around with squinted eyes, searching for some sort of stronghold because the water main they are gripped to gives pained groans as it is pulled from the ground. His eyes are blinded by debris and dust, but fix on something vivid pink in the storm.

'Is that Sakura?' Sasuke marvels. Sure enough, the pink haired woman is making her way across the pipeline, her fingers gripping into the metal like dough. She looks at them straight on. Sasuke sees her green eyes flash as her pace quickens. His guide looks somewhat surprised when she puts a fist through a wall of brick that flies her way.

"Sasuke!" She calls his name through the wind, voice choked with ash. Hooking her legs around the water main they cling to, she reaches for them both. The guide's hand cannot fully reach her proffered arms, and Sasuke hooks an arm around the arm of the guide and pushes off, just catching Sakura's fingers.

She pulls them both to safety as the main breaks, water spewing upward.

"What's happening, Sasuke?" She screams through the wind. Before he can answer, the guide grabs both their hands and clasps them to each other.

"Go with them." He says to her, his quiet command piercing the wind.

"What!" She shrieks to him—or maybe to Sasuke; Sasuke is unsure.

"No fear." He hears from the man, whose incredible strength holds them fast, even as Sakura struggles.

"What the—" She shrieked in shock, then her jaw drops in recognition.

'Who is he?' Sasuke wonders, frustrated, confused, and admittedly, a little frightened. He _knows_ this man, he insists to himself. He knows him _well_.

"Trust me." Says the man, and without Sasuke's consent he and Sakura are flying hopelessly upward.

*&*

The lady in grey lunged at Naruto with jagged knives of black flame intent on splitting the stone heart that he protects. His arms are a mess from her blows, leaking blood and healing up shoddily as he focuses his attention on her.

She's a mess too though. For every blow she deals him she receives one in return, in the exact same spot.

Slicing an arc into the air, she spins to kick where she thought he was, jumping off of a chunk of floating rock. A blade of light comes down and connects with her shoulder, cutting deep. They both wince, each receiving matching wounds on the same muscle but Naruto recovers faster than her, and kicks off a hurtling tree to strike at her arms.

He misses by a hair and she ducks under him, pulling him down as she flies by, her hands clamber from his ankle up to his knee, before he forces her off with a solid kick to the head, connecting with a crack that sends them both reeling. Dazed, she floats helplessly upward, and as Naruto regains his bearings, she flounders to get control of her body back. He effortlessly jumps over to her limp body, and pulls her bodily out of the way of a flying power line.

Pressed to his chest, she groans and shakes her head, weakly trying to pull away, but her arms are not moving as she wishes them to.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, "why did it have to be this way? I'm so sorry..."

He quiets, and the roar of destruction around them escalates tenfold. Leaning her back, he brushes the flames from her neck as they float, and shakes his head. He looks her in the eyes and bites his lip as he stares at a small seal on her neck.

"**First Door: Obedience! Open!**" He commands through the cacophony, then pulling back his arm, he strikes; blades of light piercing the lifeless skin there. They both cry out, and her form begins to tremble as her skin crumbles, leaving only a dark glittering gem in his hand, ashes on his clothes, and a dark stain of blood dribbling down his neck.

Naruto gazed at the stone, trying to maintain consciousness. Between the kick and the injury to the neck, it's hard to focus his power into the stone. The world blurs and with a vicious hiss he lets his body hang limp, the air current pulling him into the dark whirlpool. With a desperate gasp he summoned a last breath, gritting his teeth.

"**Final Seal: Stone of the Silent!**"

Bearing down on the words, Naruto tips his head back as the stone erupts in a blaze of light and leaps from his hand to the broken jewel on his chest. The fragment steeps the gem heart in red before melting to finish part of its jagged edge.

Naruto breathes a sigh of relief before letting his body float upwards into the dark void.

To Be Continued

A.N.: If you enjoyed it, review. If not, then I'll just have to assume…

Oh and hey, I'm thinking about changing the title of this story. Any suggestions?


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

A.N.: I guess I'll try to finish this. It might take a while. I miss just writing for myself...

*&* = Scene change

~&~ or _Italics_= Flashback/ Mindscape/ Dreamscape

~*~= Scene change in a Flashback

She's always followed after them. First she was chasing Sasuke, then Naruto.

It's never really panned out. Ever.

So in an effort to save herself and her sanity, Haruno Sakura attempted to make her own way.

She likes to think that after many failures and dead ends, she's finally found her path. However, her dead ends are not as dead as she once assumed. She no longer holds such delusions.

_It's been a full year since she's seen Naruto, a year and a half since she's been on a mission, and six months since she's heard anything from him. A while after they both made ANBU he stopped taking missions with her, per request to Kakashi._

_It still burns her that he went all the way up to the top instead of just talking to her. He never really told her why; she figured it was one of Naruto's little ways of protecting her. He's been strange to her lately—he runs away when she tries to talk to him, or he's surrounded by a wall of people who want to talk to him, challenge him, _be_ him. _

_Admittedly, Sakura finds herself just a tad bit jealous, but she has Ino, so the lonely hole in her heart is plastered over by her rival. It's only been bad lately because Ino's gone with Shikamaru to Suna as of late on an extended mission._

_But that's okay now because she has him. Finally, she's caught him!_

_"Jeeze Sakura! Did ya have ta tackle me?" He grunts, face in the pressed against dirty tile as she sits on his back, arms locked behind him like a criminal._

_He is a criminal: it's gotta be a crime to leave your comrades high and dry like that! Even he says that all the time. So why is it that she has to track him down and pin him in order to get him to even spend a moment with her?_

_Ignoring his question, she gets straight to the point—they're in public, after all, she tackled him in the marketplace as he was pulling a box of miso ramen off the shelf._

"_You stopped taking missions with me." Sakura says, frowning._

"_Well, yeah!" He huffs indignantly, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. As if it were the only possible thing he could do._

"_Why?"_

"_You know, Sakura, I thought you figured this out about nine months ago." He mumbles, twisting his head to get out of the awkward position, she pushes his head back down. To her the touch is like batting a feather, but the tile breaks under the pressure of his skull. She frowns as he curses a blue streak into the ground._

"_Why?"_

"_Sakura , get off!"_

"_Why?"_

"_Because you're crushing me!"_

_She glares at him in response and increases the pressure on his head. Sakura can't help but think of eggs cracking; their whites oozing down the sides as increased pressure causes fissures…_

"_Why?" She asks again, her jaw clenched in frustration—concentration (she doesn't want to break her best friend)._

"_Because this person—this thing—that you're becoming—that you think is so great—I can't stand it!"_

_She lets him up instantly, her body tensed in shock. He slowly gets up and gives her guilty little glances, his gaze locked on the dent in the floor. As he stands up fully, he puts a hand through his hair, and Sakura would swear that those are tears in his eyes. (She didn't hurt him, did she?)_

"_Look…" he falters, shaking his head, "this isn't how I wanted to have this conversation. Seriously. Umm…"_

_He bites his lip, and grabs her arm roughly, pulling her around to a dark alley. Still in shock, she follows him, looking lost._

"_Do you," He starts nervously, "do you remember the Matsumoto mission? The one where we had to question all those missing nin?"_

_She nodded dumbly, eyes still wide as she fell against the brick wall. How could she not remember? Naruto had nearly died on that mission._

Sakura screamed as she held the broken remnants of Naruto's body, shaking and rocking him against her chest. Blood drained down from her hair…

_She suppressed a shudder and looked down momentarily. He continued._

"_Do you remember what happened when I… when you…"_

_He didn't have to say it. The memory was far too vivid in her mind. She had… lost it—to say the very least._

A blink and Sakura remembers where they are and who she is. Her eyes widen as she takes in the scope of the carnage around her. There are pieces of… pieces of people everywhere… Falling to her knees, she sinks into a swamp of gore, crushed tissue and blood squishing disturbingly under her…

"_After that you never were… really… back, you know? You weren't the Miss Sakura I knew anymore."_

As blood dripped from tree branches above, Sakura looked at her hands, which were covered not with her gloves, but with skin—not her own. Her mouth opened of its own accord, and Sakura feared that she would scream, but what came out was far worse.

She laughed, and laughed, and laughed…

Behind her, Naruto paled beyond measure, his mouth open in wordless shock.

Sakura wakes from the memory with a jolt to realize that she's falling through the air, suspended with her arms around Sasuke. Looking around quickly, Sakura flicked her eyes downward.

Water—and lots of it—stirred below in dark eddies as they fell towards it. She couldn't see anything else beyond the column of air that whipped around them, pushing them down and out from its center. Sakura's eyes searched their course, spotting a pile of rubble at its finish. With a grunt of effort, Sakura pulled them from falling headfirst into concrete—crashing foot-first through a wall and plowing into a jumble of warped steel. Giving a low screech, the steel broke through, and they dropped onto a patch of rendered bricks.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Sakura dropped to one knee; Sasuke cradled in her arms as she looked around. She looked down at him and saw a line of red running from his forehead to his neck. She cursed quietly and wiped it from his head, examining his scalp. Sakura frowned; the jar from their landing must have really messed with him, but there wasn't anything she could do for him until he woke up—that is, if he woke up. She cursed again, but laid him down to rest on the bricks.

Sasuke comes to with his head spinning. A splitting pain sears across his forehead to jumble his eyesight which is already blurry. As far as he can tell he's lying across something hard and jagged, and one of his feet is in a pool of water. Sweat and grime cling to him along with a layer of dust.

Coughing erupts on the side of him and Sasuke tries to spring into a fighting stance, falling over into a puddle of water when his balance doesn't kick in. Floundering, Sasuke tries to find which direction is up but ends up splashing around as if he's having a seizure.

'Oh great,' Sasuke muses sardonically, 'death by drowning.'

Suddenly a hand delves through the water to pull him up. He gasps for air, choking up water and spit until he can turn over onto his stomach. Warm, hearty laughter fills the space around his head.

"…like a cat!" he hears between someone's chuckling wheezes.

Slowly the world comes back to him in spurts and flashes of pain and light. Sasuke rolled over with a groan as he attempted to shake the water out of his nose. He still couldn't see straight, and who was laughing at him?

Sasuke looks up through blurry eyes and sees a flash of pink.

'Oh, it's Sakura,' he grouses, but focusing on her long enough to glare at her is too difficult and he falls to his side.

Seeing him tip over, Sakura walked to his side and lifted up one of his eyelids, propping him up for a better look. She peered into his eye, waving one finger to and fro to get him to follow the movement.

"Hmm…" She hummed with a fist under her chin.

Sasuke swayed in the air for a moment. Chakra filled the air and there was a crack as Sakura backhanded Sasuke into the air.

With a splash Sasuke splutters and swims blindly back to a hard surface.

Wait. _He can swim._ What a way to heal somebody…

In the shadow of a rock Sasuke gains his bearings and manages to see straight. Looking around he can make out wrenched out chunks of buildings steeped in water. The water reflects a grey sky interrupted by puffs of white cloud, nothing else.

A yell from the rock he was on previously alerts him.

"Hey Sasuke! Get over here! I want answers!"

Looking around, the pool seems endless; the only thing stopping his vision endless ruins. Clenching his hands, Sasuke reached for any chakra he could manage but nothing came to his call. Running a hand through his hair, Sasuke pressed his head to the rock in frustration.

"Sasuke," she howls, "Don't make me come find you!"

Sasuke brushed stringy wet hair out of his eyes and peeked from behind the chunk of rock he cowered behind. He pulled back suddenly when a kunai nearly took off his nose. Under his breath he muttered a surprised curse and she crouched to stare where she saw the movement.

"I said—"

"Alright, alright." He placated, and swam out from behind the rock. She watched him haughtily as he clambered up to the space in front of her. He wrung himself dry as she evaluated him with her eyes.

"Okay then, start explaining," Sakura cajoled, her arms crossed as she sat back on the slanting rock.

After sparing her a glance Sasuke turned away. Silence rang in the air.

"So I'll assume that you don't know any more than I do. Well that's a start."

Sasuke looked at her, a little confused.

"Leaves me with two choices," Sakura chimed casually, "I can either assume that you have no more knowledge than I do or make you give me what you know."

Sasuke's muscles tightened a fraction. Sakura's expression turned blank.

"Huh, so you really don't know anything. In that case, then let's go. We have to at least find out where we are now."

Leaving the ground, Sakura launched herself from rock to ruin with languid, impressively high leaps. Sasuke followed after with quick, short hops from surfaces below her.

"Where are we going?" He managed once she touched ground again.

She pointed somewhere towards the edge of the horizon. Squinting, Sasuke looked ahead but saw nothing except for a few fat rolling clouds.

"It's the only thing in this stupid place that changes. If you haven't noticed, the sky isn't moving at all. There's no waves, no wind, no ripples, nothin'."

Sasuke followed obediently until they came upon a place where the water began to move. The sky darkened overhead to rolling grey clouds, and the water rushed ahead of them.

Suddenly they stopped. Sasuke looked up, his eyes wide with awe.

A column of water reached into the heavens to puncture the expanse of storm clouds. Telephone poles, chunks of brick walls, and plots of earth rushed downward into the water below.

"Well, we're here." Sakura announced, turning smugly to Sasuke.

Naruto woke up to a terrible pain in his back. Jerking open his eyes, he gasped, and flailed painfully. Managing to get into a sitting position, he felt around cautiously.

"Naruto!" A voice called. Who the voice belonged to though, he could not tell. It seemed female.

"Naruto, don't move! Whatever you do, _don't move_!"

Who is this person? He'll move where he so pleases, _thank you_.

Naruto moved his hand to rub dust and grime out of his eyes. The earth wobbled under him. Naruto opened his eyes. He looked down.

"GAAH!"

"Naruto, you moron, stop moving!"

Naruto recognized the voice from somewhere… Female…

"SAKURA!" Naruto howled, causing the shaky platform beneath him to quake.

"Oh man, he's gonna fall. Sasuke, can you—nevermind."

_Sasuke! Sasuke and Sakura! Sasuke and Sakura were here?_

Naruto's eyes rolled back in their sockets.

As he walked across the limited space of the Uchiha compound, Hatake Kakashi decided that he was not having a good day. He was never supposed to return to the position of hokage; Kakashi hated it with a passion beyond all recognition. He would have traded this day for all the other bad days of bad days of his life in a heartbeat.

Well, except for one.

"Obito," queried a disguised Uchiha Itachi as he handed him a scroll, walking impassively beside him while carrying a stack of scrolls procured from around the compound. Kakashi frowned at his bluntness, but nodded. Iruka was moving with them and looked at them quizzically as he looked up from a scroll. Kakashi preemptively waved him off. That man was far too nosey for Kakashi's tastes, especially lately. Since Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke's disappearances he had been digging for answers with the ruthlessness of a Wave ninja. Kakashi had been forced to give him an armload of tasks to simply distract him.

Iruka sent off three more chunnin who were exploring the boundaries of the seal and the Uchiha Compound, writing down their report as he turned to a group of Hyuuga. Gritting his teeth, Kakashi attempted to rub away a migraine along with his annoyance at Umino—at everything really; at Itachi, at the jounin popping back and forth around him as he walked, at the fact that the second unsealing of the barrier made it impossible for even him to get out, at being hokage again…

Ugh. He thought he had gotten away from this job when Naruto took it. At least he didn't have to worry about other nations attacking, because apparently the seal had grown overnight, another dome spreading to the outer edges of Fire. Reports from awestruck Hyuuga had told him that much (though with much stuttering and exasperation).

"Like a father with his arms outstretched…" one of them had said dreamily. Kakashi hoped to never hear anyone from that family wax poetic again.

Once Kakashi managed to foist Iruka off with an exploration of the tunnels they had found beneath the compound he secured one of the Uchiha tearooms to speak alone with Itachi.

Without Iruka.

With a dry look, Kakashi glared at Iruka until the instructor looked up at him, feigning ignorance.

"Ahem." He said, trying to get the man's attention. Iruka looked up, blinking.

"Oh! I'm sorry! Did you need me to go?" Iruka said brightly. Kakashi nodded and the instructor wheeled out of the room, humming a song. Kakashi's eye twitched and he turned to Itachi as soon as the door shut. As he opened his mouth Itachi held a hand up, walking to the paper thin walls and placing a small tag there. The walls flared blue as a silencing seal took hold, and Kakashi cursed quietly.

Itachi blinked. "You are welcome." He said blandly.

With a sigh Kakashi sat down upon a mat in front of the little tea table. Itachi sat the scrolls bunched under his right arm down gently and pulled a thin, battered envelope from his borrowed jounin vest. Kakashi's eye widened as he placed the worn piece of paper onto the tea table.

"Is that… what I think it is?" Kakashi whispered hesitantly.

"Yes." Spoke Itachi, gently lifting the envelope off of the table and gingerly beginning to open it. After too long a time (in Kakashi's opinion) the missing nin produced a thin sheet of paper which read:

"**The question is…" Said the caged bird…**

Kakashi blinked in silence. Itachi did likewise.

"The first clue…" said Itachi with a sigh, "is somewhat ambiguous."

A length of tripwire, three kunai, and some ingenuity keep Naruto's body from falling into the black tempest below. Holding the wires is tricky, so it's left to Sasuke to pull him up. Sakura grumbles at this, because with a flick of her wrist he would have already been up here—but Sasuke's not quite that strong (he grumbles to himself that she-hulks should really stop complaining because it's a good thirty meters of wire).

Sakura shoots him a glare and tells him to hurry it up before she uses his head as a pulley wheel.

As Naruto's limp body jerks and ascends Sakura takes the moment to wonder why Sasuke's chakra isn't running normally—like a wine barrel with a hole in the side; chakra leaking out before it can be used. If that's the case, then where…

"Where's your stopper?" Sakura murmurs thoughtfully. Sasuke looks at her like she's just sprouted rabbit ears.

"Your chakra," she presses, "it's just running out, ya know. Like a broken teacup."

He turns back to the wires, ignoring her for the task. This just gives her more time to think, and she closes her eyes to feel out his chakra through the strings passing through his hands back to her. Traveling the current of energy, Sakura's mind circles around his chakra until she finds the opening—a clean cut, as if someone made an incision to place something else there. There are scars on his pathways from over and underuse, from Orochimaru and Kabuto (she recognizes their handiwork), and from his Sharingan, which requires violent bursts of chakra—but none are as clean as this one.

Annoyed by her probing, Sasuke mutters a forceful 'kai', which is more to tell her to stay out than for necessity. It's too little too late; Sakura already knows a lot more than she did before.

"Well that was stupid," she begins to mutter when Sasuke fixes her with a baleful glare, to which she adds with extra sass; "You let someone fix their chakra system onto yours? You know, if that person dies, you're screwed, right?"

His hands freeze momentarily, but he keeps pulling the sharp little threads carefully, not to injure himself. Apparently, he had not known of this little faux pas, which makes Sakura smirk. All the same, she lets the issue pass when he finally brings a beaten, tan body to the surface.

The little smile on her face drops like a stone when she sees Naruto's abused form. Streaks of blood mat his jacket and hair, plastering them to his skin, where ash and dirt abound. On his neck he wears a fatal-looking wound to the jugular that looks old; crusted blood surrounds a disturbing gaping hole in his throat. Surprisingly enough, he's still breathing in harried, desperate little gasps. The medic nin grimaces as she watches the muscles sheared from around his jugular squirm fruitlessly, and she squabbles over to heal him. Sasuke moves away with a frown, looking a little pale.

'Heh,' she laughs to herself, 'he's still pretty squeamish for a missing nin…'

It only takes her a moment to get to work, fingers probing in the wound to heal delicate little muscles and nerve endings. Suddenly, with a blink, she realizes, looking at Sasuke and Naruto in slight awe, that something much different is going on with Sasuke.

"Hey, Sasuke," she calls, nodding him over from where he was crouched, staring at the empty horizon, "get over here and hold his head up."

His jaw twitches in resistance, and she watches smugly as he bends down to help her. His hands remain at his sides until she urges him wordlessly.

As he slips his hands under Naruto's head, however, a brilliant light flickers from his body, and they are whisked off, pulled by their hands to another place and time.

A.N.: Comments are heard, critiques are considered, and reviews are loved—but recommendations to your friends are as good as gold!

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	10. Chapter 10

Will Negates Defeat

*&* = Scene change

~&~ or _Italics_= Flashback/ Mindscape/ Dreamscape

~*~= Scene change in a Flashback

Chapter 10: First Blood

Overhead, grey skies blanketed the ruins of Konoha, melding with the broken walls and stone. Dark ravens scoured the ground in black drafts, scavenging for food among the jagged outcroppings. Stray winds blew dust and small detritus along the ground and through the air, only stopping short of the now light blue dome surrounding the untouched Uchiha compound.

And in the center of it all, Neji Hyuuga sat, Byakugan blazing, studying every detail his eyes could conquer.

'Those free to fly are not always the loftiest, I see,' he bemused, his eyes still searching the horizon. A gentle hand on his shoulder alerts him to his cousin's presence. She's gotten better, as of late, at making her movements so fast as to be unnoticed, so small as to be unseen.

Hinata always knew she was good at being underestimated. It was not until a few years ago that she began putting it to use, though, and with her speed and Byakugan it had gradually earned her the respect of the elders. It was still hard for Neji to comprehend though, how she had come to have such a heavy hand in clan affairs; once such a trembling and shy girl was now a steady, quiet woman.

"I spoke with Kakashi." She states, and it is a question.

"What did he say? Will we be able to leave?"

Hinata shakes her head, long tendrils of hair shifting over her shoulders. The hand on his shoulder moves to his palm.

"He said that Sakura's blood was required to break the seal. I'm not sure why he let her through if he knew that."

"She was going to break him, Hinata. I think anyone would have stood down against Tsunade's Monster."

Hinata taps him lightly for the insult against Sakura, but she knows that it's too true. Her entrance into a room could silence some of the most powerful of men and rumors of her going mad ran unchecked in quiet whispers upon her exit. This did not mean, however, that she had lost any measure of respect—in fact, the rumors of her insane power bolstered her up in the bingo books.

"Kakashi is being purposely indecisive," Hinata whispers in a harsh whisper to her cousin. "He's waiting for something and he's running circles around all of the Konoha elders to keep it a secret."

Neji starts at her abrupt outburst and gives her a long hard look. Hinata's face is still, but her hands shake with effort to keep them still.

"How do you know?" Neji starts. "He could be as clueless as the rest of us and simply be acting normally. Kakashi is like that, you know." Hinata shakes her head, frustrated. "Iruka knows something's up, Sakura knew too—I think that's why she left—and I think that this all has to do something with why Naruto left." Neji nods, but Hinata is not done. "Iruka was listening to Kakashi's orders and all the scrolls he was looking at when we came here. He's also been examining the seal on the gate doors. He said it looks something like the caged bird seal."

Neji's back goes ramrod straight and his muscles tightened. 'If it's the caged bird seal on those gates,' he panics internally, 'then who has control? And what they want with us?' His mind fills with horrific scenarios of all the Konoha citizens being subject to the pain of the caged bird seal at the whim of an unknown specter. His cousin nods sympathetically as he shudders.

"Do you want me to look into it? I can help Iruka along in his research." He whispers as the sun flickers at the edge of the dome. Hinata nods and with a twist and a look into the setting sun, she disappears into the night.

In a land far away next to crashing waves and cascades of sunlight, florid yellow feathers rustled desperately as a lone canary attempted to pry melted, dried sugar off of a worn windowsill. Koribichi Koriko looked out at the shining bird from behind scabbed, paper thin hands from his crouch across the room. Slivers of sunlight filtered into the room from behind a maze of dead vines and loud market sounds echoed up from dusty market streets below. Koribichi licked his dry lips in anticipation and smiled fiendishly as a deep shudder filed up his spine.

Naruto was back.

He worried his bottom lip with sharp, brown incisors, planning his attack. Naruto had opened the first gate; if he could get Naruto to keep the gate open he could get a new body, instead of this old and decaying one then he could have his cake—

_A vision of blonde hair and a broken smile passed through his mind—_

and eat him too…

Koriko, in one fluid motion, clenched the fluttering canary in his fist and admired it as it clawed and fought his stubborn fist. He brought the squawking bird up to his mouth, crunching its head in between his molars, blood spilling over his chin to soak dirty torn rags that held his dying frame.

Naruto wakes with a howl of pain. Opening the first gate has taken so much energy that every fiber of his being screams for mercy and sustenance. His hands grope blindly and find plush grass, which he stuffs barbarically into his mouth until his limbs stop burning and he can see again.

Shakily, Naruto turns himself over in the well of dirt his grasping fingers have made. He's thirsty, and water alone no longer can satisfy his changing, broken, and battered body. He curses softly as he realizes where he is and why the thirst attempting to eat him alive is not for food or water. With a groan Naruto rights himself, taking hold of a dark green tree nearby—its thorns cut into his skin as he studies the landscape around him. Mist entwined jungle where dead and living plants twist and fight for dominance. Sunlight barely filters in from between trees and clouds and Naruto can pick out the base of a mountain far into the distance: green and just as hungry—if not more—than he is.

An unholy roar echoes through the jungle somewhere behind him, shaking wet droplets from the treetops. Naruto goes into a combative stance, watching every falling leaf and skittering ant as he walks, trying to not become the jungle's next meal. His footsteps are light and cautious, even through his exhaustion. His ninja skills are useless in this land, and he is frighteningly uncomfortable. The beast hidden in the jungle shadow teases him; pawing at the branches around him, stretching long claws to slide down trees and bellowing lowly as it makes a circle around him.

After several intense seconds, Naruto looses it.

"Well, come on! I don't got all day!" He screams into the trees. Another second passes and he deflates, relaxing.

A claw as big as his arm swipes at his stomach and he barely dodges out of the way, tearing off his Hokage's cloak allowing him free movement. A scaly beast twice his size with flickering black eyes slinks along the jungle floor, spearing leaves with long sharp claws as it disentwines eight scaly legs from a tree. Thin lips separate to reveal rows of black, barely shrouded teeth. Naruto backs warily from the thing; his own instinct prickling at his skin, his chakra responds sympathetically but is confined to his flesh and bone. His back arches inhumanly and he sinks to all fours, hissing at the creature.

Its interest piqued by Naruto's challenge, the lizard springs, slashing at Naruto head-on. Naruto slips under its grasp, diving away from its lacquer-black claws to grab onto vine behind him. His hands are stronger here, though, and the plant disintegrates under his touch. Naruto's eyes light up with inspired fire.

The lizard is on him as soon as he makes the realization, and as it attacks, Naruto catches it by the claws, blood rending from his palms and down his arms. He looks the beast in the eyes.

"You picked the wrong day to mess with me."

The beast whimpers in realization as it attempts to free itself. With a smirk, Naruto breaks the claws off at the base. He slams the claws into the thin wriggling torso of the lizard, twisting them viciously. Blood seeps out of the gaping wound and Naruto licks his lips; the scent of blood filling his lungs.

He is hungry. So _very_ hungry…

Feeling slightly drugged and beaten, Sasuke wakes to the sound of crashing waves. Under his body grains of sand grit and rub at his skin. Above, a harsh tropic sun attempts to bake him as he blinks away the sleep from his eyes and spit the taste of salt out of his mouth.

"Morning sleepyhead!"

Sasuke starts and turns to his right, where Sakura sits, curled up in a ball, pink wraggly strands of hair stuck to her face. A tired smirk lights her face as she looks out onto an endless ocean.

"Where… where are we?" Sasuke manages, weariness crippling his voice.

Sakura shrugs. "Nowhere near Konoha, that's for sure. I tried to summon Katsuyu, but she wouldn't respond to me. Try summoning something."

Sasuke shakes his head. "I can't feel anything at all. It's like I never signed the contract." Sasuke looks at his hands as he sits up. What is even more worrisome is that his chakra is not responding in any of the usual ways. All he has is that chakra tunnel to Naruto, where power seeps through in a small drain, not like the constant pressing stream he is used to. As he ponders what that means Sakura comes to stands beside him.

"I've been doing some recon and I found what I think is a temple up the way. We should be able to get some answers from there." Sasuke nods and looks around, taking in the beach, which stops at a deep and dark jungle ridge that climbs up to a mountain shrouded in mist. He stands, his body resisting with all its might. Pink hair guides the way as they walk into the jungle, bobbing along a beaten path in the jungle floor.

"Sasuke, why did you come back to Konoha?" She asks suddenly, not turning from the path even as she pulls out a soggy kunai from a pouch to cut away at branches that jut into the way. Sasuke's caught off guard and looks at her in surprise.

"I can't tell you that," he says candidly, equally catching Sakura off guard. She nods, but presses him. "Whatever Naruto was doing before had something to do with your mission, right? Or is it all classified?"

Sasuke clams up and they walk the rest of the way in silence. When they come to stop at a brilliant white temple, Sasuke looks up, in awe of tall white marble columns that protrude unnaturally from the forest, completely untouched. A bit of movement from the left of the towering shrine catches his eyes.

A slim, pale vision of a woman about Sakura's height examines them as she walks over. Her dark eyes pick over Sasuke and Sakura as she makes her way from a high patch of brush.

"Who are you? What do you seek?" She asks in a low, quiet voice. Her pallid hands pull a basket of white flowers to her body, which is covered in a deep blue cheongsam, only serving to make her seem ethereally white.

"My name is Sakura, this is Sasuke, and we're just looking for a friend of ours. We're pretty lost."

The woman narrows her eyes at Sakura's candid answer, and Sasuke is inclined to do the same. Sakura looks like she knows what she's doing though, so Sasuke lets her continue. With a nod, the woman comes closer, determining them not to be a threat.

"So how do foreigners such as you find yourselves here? It's not often that we get visitors." She says just as gracefully as she moves, and Sasuke notes her balance to be a little strange. One of her legs clears the brush though, and Sasuke has a hard time not staring; in place of feet she walks on two thin black pegs, which pierce the soft earth with regularity. Her clever eyes catch his gaze despite his effort though, and she smirks critically.

"I see this young man has a question about my weaponry. You should know what they are. We told you ninja to stay away from this place. Even Master Naruto wouldn't come here."

Sasuke's head snaps up and Sakura moves into a more defensive stance. Sasuke raises his eye at the woman's arrogance; did she really think she could take on two ninja with no chakra to speak of and the encumbrance of her legs in the soft forest floor?

"My name is Priestess Zhao Feiyan, and I will make sure that you will have too many holes in you to ever walk on this ground again."

Sakura smirks, her eyes on fire with challenge. "Well, Zhao Feiyan, I'm Haruno Sakura, and I'm glad we met before you died." She gestures, and slips a plethora of kunai in a ring around Zhao Feiyan with a flick of her wrist. Sasuke doesn't catch the movement but bursts apart from her when the kunai begin to glow and form a seal around the priestess.

"Hah," Zhao scoffs, "Children's tricks and toys!" She exclaims as with a flip of her hair the kunai scatter, and the chakra ring Sakura had formed pushes Sasuke back tumbling into the trees even as he runs.

'_What the… what the hell? She didn't even move!"_

Sakura, now, more determined than ever, wants to find out just how strong this priestess is. A slow turn of the woman's head gives away Sakura's location, even with the cover of the trees. Sakura looks her straight in the eyes, bringing a kunai up to stop the pointed end of a sharp leg when the woman moves at light speed to puncture her face. Frozen in midair, the woman brings her other leg up, balanced perfectly on one leg at the edge of Sakura's kunai as she swipes at Sakura's throat, forcing the kunoichi to fall out of the tree in her haste to avoid the deadly swipe. A moment before landing, Sakura flings an exploding note at the woman, tumbling to the side to find a better cover. In a burst of fire, the woman flutters to the ground, untouched, her robes fluttering in the wind. The sound of metal meeting metal lets Sakura know that Sasuke's on the attack—not as fast as he usually is though.

Sakura sweeps herself up to aid Sasuke's attack. Zhao has him at a disadvantage; he's slower than her, but his natural strength makes up for some of the difference as he parries each swipe of her leg. He ducks down to tumble away at a particularly vicious swipe, and Zhao laughs. Sasuke's been fighting with pure strength for the last few minutes as Sakura cooks up her plan, but he wears down quickly, without the extra chakra to help, he's beginning to sweat. His anger flares at the challenge, and his attacks gain a little fervor, and suddenly Sakura appears at his side _and_ at his _other_ side. His eyes flicker with Sharingan and he realizes that she's using no ordinary clone jutsu, but a shadow clone jutsu. Sasuke has to catch his breath as he works in another clean swipe at the woman's thighs. Sakura and her clone close in on the woman and Zhao smiles. "Now that's better! Can you handle it if I step this up a bit?"

A blast of white, cold, energy hits Sasuke in the chest so hard that he hears a rib crack, not registering that it is his own. Vivid colors flood his eyes and he tastes the tang of copper in the back of his throat as he falls to his knees. Sakura stumbles and her clone dissipates to the side and she renews it, gritting her teeth.

Zhao eyes them both with sudden realization and slight disappointment.

"You're not real ninja, are you?" She murmurs piteously. "I would be dead by now if you were real ninja."

Enraged; Sakura and her clone charge only to be driven down with a spinning kick from Zhao. A black, seamless leg rips through the clone's chest and another pierces Sakura's shoulder, pinning her to the ground. Summoning her strength, Sakura punches straight through the woman's leg, and with a bloody rip, she staggers, leaning wholly on one leg. With a grunt, Sakura pulls the instrument from her shoulder. A look of slight surprise visits the woman's face, and she smirks sadly as her broken weapon reforms, melting to a smooth point to pierce the ground. Spitting, Sakura throws the blade to the ground.

"But you have the same spirit as he did… Perhaps you can be taught." With a nod, Zhao rests her arms to her sides. Surprised, Sakura stands up straight and looks at the pale priestess. Relaxing, Zhao smiles and walks past Sakura, quick and unhurried. "Follow me, Young Blossom, perhaps you can be saved yet. Bring your friend if you value his life."

Shell shocked, Sakura shakes her head but follows her meekly into the temple, picking Sasuke up along the way. The priestess picks up her basket of flowers on the way and extends her hand towards the temple's tall marble doors which move aside smoothly.

Sakura cannot hide her stare as she shuffled into the temple with Sasuke. Flowers blossomed from the ceiling, floor, and walls of every season and color. Birds lit from branches and vines that extended in columns from the ceiling.

"Welcome to the temple of Amateseru." Zhao says her face blank and calm. "My sisters and I reside here to protect the Jewel of the Sun."

Sakura starts when Sasuke pushes her to the side, his face a mask of indignation. "Sasuke?" She questions as he stumbles to his feet, his fist clenched.

"Why are you lying?" He grates his eyes skeptical as he glares at the priestess. Zhao gives him an offended look.

"The Jewel of the Sun doesn't exist. Quit mocking us!" Affronted, Sasuke steps towards her; "The Jewel has been destroyed for over 200 years. Why are you lying?"

Zhao's eyes go wide before she takes a step back, suddenly defensive. "Just what do you know of the jewel?"

"What do you know?" He challenges, the insult in his eyes makes them flicker red despite his lack of chakra.

Zhao sighs and brushes her hair over her ear. "I see you really are not ninja."

Sakura stiffens, irritated. "Why do you keep saying that?"

Zhao frowned, confused; "We have kept the jewel and its powers from ninja for over 400 years. There are few who know how to get here, and even fewer who leave. Only one ninja has ever left this place, and he would never tell the secrets of the jewel." Cocking her head to the side and scowling, Sakura asks, "Would his name happen to be Naruto?"

Incredulous, Zhao turned wide-eyed to Sakura.

"Let me heal your wounds," she says, nodding to Sasuke, and with a pointed look to Sakura finishes, "and we shall see if we can come to share our knowledge."

In a small hut intersected by vines and rotted trees, twelve men bowed prostrate to a hooded figure who stood in the center of their semi-circle. Sunlight drifted into the small hut from in between the overgrowth and rested on the dead, grey skin of the man in the center.

"Koribichi-sensei," spoke one of the bowed figures in the center, trembling, "Why have you summoned us?"

With a sweep of a cloak, the hooded man in the center approached one of the vines where a lone rat nibbled at a blossom. Breathless and silent he watched the rat's chest fall and rise as it ate.

"Koribichi-sensei," another one of the men spoke, "we have followed your orders and the hunger has not abated. If anything…" he murmured, raising a starved, shaking hand whose bones protruded through the skin, "it has worsened."

Koribichi continued to watch the rat, a smirk overtaking his face; revealing rows of rotting, sharp teeth.

"Which of you is dying?" He issued to the men in a dusty whisper. "Which of you has succomed to the thirst?"

All of the men tensed and cowered, hiding their heads. Some whimpered and curled into fearful balls. Koribichi barked with laughter, his putrid breath filling the air.

"I see… all of you… worthless disciples. Like disobedient dogs that cannot control themselves." He turned from the rat to wrench one of the men up by the hair. The man writhed and clawed at the strong but decaying hand. "And you, who did you eat? You were one of the most promising…"

The man stopped his struggling as tears issued from his eyes, his hands falling to claw bloody streaks into his face.

"My d-daughter… my precious baby…." He stuttered, his choked sobs echoing through the empty room.

Koribichi scoffed and let the man drop to the floor, walking to another man who had curled into himself. "And you? Who did you consume?"

Suddenly, the man stopped shaking and lifted his head, tears pouring from his eyes as he laughed hysterically.

"All of them… my wife, my children," he murmured, looking into the daylight, "my mother…."

Shaking his head in disgust, Koribichi shuffled his rag covered decrepit feet back to the rat, still pecking at the branch.

"I send you out for one week, and these are the consequences?"

In a blur, Koribichi's hand shot out, capturing the rat from the vine. It wriggled in his hand, trying to escape as he brought it to his face. He inhaled the scent of the small writhing animal, turning back to his disobedient students.

He said, coming closer to pace around them. "Very well then; I suppose I will let you go."

In fear, the men stood from their places and gazed upon him in horror. "Please, sensei," one of the men begged, "we could not control ourselves without your power. The villages down below… they would be decimated."

"Do not call me your teacher." Koribichi growled. "I have suffered your weakness for longer than I can bear, and it drains upon me. My only true disciple has returned."

Again the men trembled, murmuring to each other, "Sensei… Sensei, do you mean… Naruto has returned to us?"

"Returned to _me_! _Me_!" With a sickening crack, the rat in Koribichi's hand was rendered to a bloody pulp. All of his disciples flinched at the stench of blood and fresh death and their sensei's outburst.

"Get out. Find him, bring him to me, or I will release you fully."

"No Sensei! Please!"

"Go!"

Panting and stumbling, Naruto slogs his way to the top of the mountain.

"_I can feel the jewel, there, and it's being used… there's only one man at this time who knows how to use it… _"

A wave of hunger drives him to his knees and he bites his lip, thinking of the lizard he left untouched. A shudder wracks his body, unbidden.

"_Remember; the more blood you consume, the hungrier you will be._"

Another sudden crackling in the trees makes Naruto twist toward the crunch of twigs, bowing his body to be ready to attack. In the cleft of a tree, two men with dark tattoos swirling down their faces gaze down, evaluating him cautiously. Through the patches of light through the leaves, Naruto can see strong limbs and jagged swords. Two men with haunted expressions are hunting him; from their perch he can sense the hunger and rage radiating off of them. In a gruff voice, one of them snaps at Naruto.

"We are here to bring you back, Master Naruto. Koribichi-sensei demands your presence."

With a glint in his eyes, Naruto cocks his head to the side, measuring them indignantly.

"And just what," he spits, "makes Koribichi think that he owns me?"

A wave of killing intent washes over the men and they buckle, unnerved and offended.


End file.
